THE    RECONSTRUCTION    OF 
RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 


BY 


W.  H.  MALLOCK 

AUTHOR   OP 
"IS   LIFE   WORTH    LIVING?" 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS    PUBLISHER 
«9°5 


Copyright,  1905,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reserved. 
Published  October,  1905. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK   I 

CHAP.  PAGB 

I.  Two  False  Methods  of  Apologetic — the  Clerical  At- 
tack, and  the  Philosophic 3 

II.  The  Clerical  Attack  on  Science,  which  aims  vainly  at 
discrediting  the  Scientific  Scheme  in  Detail,  and 
in  looking  for  Flaws  where  no  Flaws  exist  ...  10 

III.  The  Philosophical  Attack  on  Science,  by  which  Sci- 

ence is   educated    and   strengthened,   instead   of 
being  in  any  way  invalidated 22 

IV.  Idealism  versus  Science.     The  Nature  of  the  Attack 

most  in  vogue  among  Modern  Religious  Philoso- 
phers       27 

V.  Idealism  as  absorbed  by  Science.  The  Manner  in 
which  Science  makes  the  Doctrines  of  Metaphysics 
its  own,  repelling  its  Philosophic  Assailants  by  ap- 
propriating their  Weapons 36 

BOOK    II 

I.  The  Practical  Weakness  of  Current  Science.  The 
Social  Functions  of  the  Religious  Beliefs  which 
Science  denies 53 

II.  Belief  as  a  Causal  Factor  in  Life.     Huxley's  Para- 
doxical Denial  of  Causality  to  Conscious  States, 
not  demanded  by  even  his  own  Scientific  Prin- 
ciples.    Explicit  Beliefs,  and  Implicit     ....       59 
iii 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  ?AG8 

III.  Mental  Civilization  and  the  three  Beliefs  of  Theism. 

These  to  be  here  treated  in  a  Non-Sectarian 
Spirit 68 

IV.  Mental  Civilization  and  the  Belief  in  Human  Free- 

dom. The  Belief  in  Freedom  implicit  in  all  our 
Judgment  of  Action  and  Character,  our  Emo- 
tional Experiences,  and  our  Conception  of  Per- 
sonality   72 

V.  Mental  Civilization  and  the  Belief  in  a  Con- 
scious Deity.  The  Value  of  Truth  and  Good- 
ness statable  only  in  terms  of  some  Theistic 
Theory 91 

VI.  Mental  Civilization  and  the  Belief  in  Human   Im- 
mortality   no 

VII.  The  Practical  Futility  of  the  Proposed  Substitutes 

for  Theism 117 


BOOK    III 

I.  Current  Science  recriticised  by  means  of  its  own 
Principles.  The  Relation  of  Science  to  Intelli- 
gent Purpose  in  the  Universe,  the  First  Point  to 
be  dealt  with 135 

II.  All  that  is,  implicit  in  all  that  was.  The  more 
rigidly  the  Principles  of  Deterministic  Science 
are  ayjplied,  the  more  obvious  is  it  that  all  that 
now  happens  and  is,  must  have  been  prear- 
ranged in  all  Previous  Molecular  Conditions  of 
Things 140 

III.  Molecular  Prearran  Cements,  Indefinite  Homo- 
geneities, and  Chance.  Complete  Failure  of 
Haeckel  and  Spencer  to  account  for  the  Pre- 

arrangements 155 

iv 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

IV.  Mind  and  Purpose  in  the  Cause  which  is  the  Syn- 
thesis of  all  Causes.  Haeckel's  own  Arguments 
shown  to  issue  in  the  conclusion  that  the  Cosmic 
Cause,  in  its  Totality,  must  possess  the  Mind  and 
Purpose  which  Haeckel  denies  to  it,  and  be  thus 
endowed  with  the  Primary  Qualities  of  Deity  .  .  176 

V.  Difficulties  connected  with  the  Moral  Character  of 
the  Cosmic  Intelligence,  and  the  Relation  to  it  of 
the  Individual  Human  Mind .-,  .  196 


BOOK   IV 

I.  Current  Evasions  of  the  Difficulties  inherent  in  all 
Theistic  Belief.  The  Trickeries  of  Theological  Ar- 
gument   203 

II.  The  Practical  Evidences  for,  as  opposed  to  the  Dif- 
ficulties inherent  in,  a  Belief  in  the  Goodness  of 
the  Deity.  Social  Results  of  the  Belief.  Evidence 
supplied  by  the  Direct  Religious  Sentiment  .  .  219 

III.  The  Practical  Solution  of  Theistic  Difficulties  which 

are  intellectually  Insoluble.  These  Difficulties 
not  confined  to  Theism.  Evidence  of  Mansel 
and  Spencer 234 

IV.  Difficulties  inherent  in  the   Conception  of  a  Free 

Human  Personality,  and  their  Practical  Solution  .     254 

V.  Belief  under  Scientific  Compulsion.  Science,  when 
logically  developed,  makes  an  Assent  to  some  kind 
of  Theism  necessary.  No  Intellectual  Difficulties 
inherent  in  Religious  Belief  are  peculiar  either  to 
Religion  or  Science 278 

VI.  Religion  and  Religions.     Christian  Theism  and  its 

Possible  Future  Rivals 294 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  two  volumes  which  I  have  published  during 
the  last  four  years,  I  have  in  different  ways  attempt- 
ed the  same  two  things — firstly,  to  show  the  futility 
of  the  methods  employed  by  the  religious  thinkers 
of  to-day  in  their  attempt  to  liberate  religion  from 
the  negative  conclusions  of  science ;  and,  secondly, 
to  point  out,  or  rather  suggest,  the  outlines  of  a 
method  which,  for  this  purpose,  is  likely  to  prove 
more  profitable.  In  Religion  as  a  Credible  Doc- 
trine, the  treatment  was  purely  argumentative. 
In  The  Veil  of  the  Temple  the  questions  dealt 
with  were  exhibited  in  their  relation  to  the  life 
of  every  day,  and  the  interests  and  characters  of 
people  who  are  anything  but  professed  thinkers; 
but  in  both  of  the  volumes  the  negative  position 
was  dealt  with  at  greater  length  than  the  positive. 
In  the  present  volume  these  proportions  are  re- 
versed. It  begins,  indeed,  with  a  short  summary 
which  exhibits  the  strength  of  the  negative  argu- 
ments, but  the  larger  part  is  occupied  with  the 
attempted  work  of  construction. 

I  agree  with  Hume  that,  in  argument  of  the 
present  description,  rhetoric  is  out  of  place,  and 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

none  will  be  found  here.  But  since  the  disposition 
of  the  reader  to  understand  an  argument  fairly 
depends,  when  subjects  such  as  the  present  are 
concerned,  very  much  on  his  conception  of  what 
the  writer's  sympathies  are,  I  quote  here  some 
verses  from  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  which,  though 
they  there  had  a  dramatic  propriety  naturally 
wanting  here,  will  give  some  idea  of  the  writer's 
view  of  a  situation  into  whose  confusion  he  is  here 
attempting  to  introduce  some  order.  The  verses 
are  supposed  to  have  been  suggested  by  a  certain 
passage  from  Nietzsche,  in  which  he  describes  the 
desire  of  the  philosopher  to  follow  Truth,  in  spite 
of  the  possibility  that  it  may,  like  Hamlet's  ghost, 
be  merely  tempting  him  to  his  destruction. 

"Here,  where  the  sailless  waves  are  pale  and  hoary, 
Strayed  from  my  kind  in  this  undreamed-of  land, 

What  do  I  see  on  yonder  promontory — 

What  gracious  thing  of  wings  and  whiteness  stand? 

'  Hear  me  and  heed,  thou  radiant  child  of  glory. 
Help  me,  and  take  and  guide  me  by  the  hand. 

'"O  form  divine,  with  limbs  aglow 

From  heaven,  I  hold  thy  hand  and  kneel. 
But  what  is  this?     Thy  brows  are  snow, 
Thy  hands  are  stone,  thy  wings  are  steel. 

' '  The  shining  pureness  of  thy  face 
Has  not  the  peace  of  paradise; 
Those  wings  within  the  all-holy  place 
Were  never  folded  o'er  thine  eyes. 

:"And  in  thine  eyes  I  see  no  bliss, 
Nor  even  the  tenderness  of  tears. 

viii 


INTRODUCTION 

I  see  the  blueness  of  the  abyss, 
I  see  the  icebergs  and  the  spheres. 

:<<  Angel  whose  hand  is  cold  in  mine, 

Whose  seaward  eyes  are  not  for  me — • 
Why  do  I  pray  for  wings  like  thine? 
I  would  leave  all  and  follow  thee.' 

'"O  rash  one  pause,  and  learn  my  name; 
I  know  not  love,  nor  hate,  nor  ruth. 
I  am  that  heart  of  frost  or  flame, 

Which  burns  with  one  desire — the  Truth. 

"Thou  shalt  indeed  be  lifted  up 

On  wings  like  mine  'twixt  seas  and  sky: 
But  canst  thou  drink  with  me  my  cup? 
And  canst  thou  be  baptized  as  I? 

1 '  The  cup  I  drink  can  only  rouse 

The  thirst  it  slakes  not,  like  the  sea; 
And  lo,  my  own  baptismal  brows 
Must  be  their  own  Gethsemane. 

"'Across  the  paths  where  I  must  go, 
The  shuttles  of  the  lightning  fly 
From  pole  to  pole,  and  strike,  nor  know 
If  Christs  or  kingdoms  live  or  die. 

"'The  sightless  sight  will  glaze  my  eyes 

Of  those  that  neither  wake  nor  sleep, 
As  down  the  stadium  of  the  skies 
The  eyeless  systems  lean  and  sweep. 

"Canst  thou  endure  the  worlds  of  fire, 

The  worlds  of  snow  ?  or  bear  to  mark 
On  each  some  ratlike  race  expire, 

Which  cannot  leave  its  sinking  barque  ? 
ix 


INTRODUCTION 

"'How  wilt  thou  bear  the  creeds  that  bleat 

Like  starving  sheep  from  frozen  downs — 
The  eyes  that  trust  the  blinding  sleet, 
The  anthems  that  the  thunder  drowns? 

"'O  you  for  whom  my  robes  are  white, 

For  whom  my  clear  eyes  in  the  gloom 
Are  lights — you  who  would  share  my  flight, 
Wait  for  the  end.     I  know  my  doom. 

"'I  shall  become  the  painless  pain, 

The  soundless  sound,  as  deaf  and  dumb 
The  whole  creation  strives  in  vain 
To  sing  the  song  that  will  not  come. 

'"Till  maimed  and  wingless,  burnt  and  blind, 

I  am  made  one  with  God  and  feel 
The  tumult  of  the  mindless  mind 
Torn  on  its  own  eternal  wheel.'  " 


BOOK     I 


THE    RECONSTRUCTION    OF 
RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

I 

TWO    FALSE    METHODS    OF    APOLOGETIC 

IN  order  to  live,  not  merely  a  life  that  is  good,  but 
a  life  that  is  healthy,  vigorous,  civilized,  and  even 
enjoyable,  every  one  must  have  in  his  mind  some 
background  of  belief  with  regard  to  the  nature 
of  man  and  the  meaning  of  man's  existence. 
Further,  if  this  belief  is  to  fulfil  its  functions 
properly,  it  must  not  be,  for  the  majority  of  people 
at  all  events,  a  goal  which  requires  to  be  reached 
by  any  private  intellectual  struggle;  it  must  be 
normally  assumed  as  a  starting-point  of  practical 
judgment  and  of  action. 

When,  however,  it  happens,  as  is  happening 
at  the  present  day,  that  a  life-belief,  previously 
dominant  and  accepted  as  axiomatic,  ceases  for 
various  reasons  to  be  accepted  thus  any  longer, 
it  becomes  inevitable  that  men,  in  order  to  recover 
their  health,  should  do  what  is  a  sign  of  their 

3 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

disease  but  is  the  only  available  remedy  for  it. 
That  is  to  say,  they  must  consciously  and  in- 
dividually attempt,  either  to  justify  the  old  belief 
by  supplying  it  with  new  foundations,  or  build  up 
some  new  belief  which  may  possibly  take  its  place. 
This  is  what  men  are  attempting  all  over  the 
world  to-day;  but  they  have  been  doing  so  thus 
far  with  very  little  success.  Their  failure  has 
mainly  been  due  to  the  employment  of  wrong 
methods.  The  aim  of  the  present  volume  is  to 
give  them  the  outlines  of  a  better. 

Let  me,  though  its  features  are  familiar  enough 
to  all  of  us,  describe  the  existing  situation  in  more 
particular  terms.  All  that  portion  of  mankind  to 
which  we  ourselves  belong  has  developed  its 
moral  and  intellectual,  to  say  nothing  of  its 
material,  civilization  under  the  influence  of  a 
belief  in  Christianity.  Of  Christianty  as  a  re- 
ligion of  miracle,  I  propose  to  say  nothing  here. 
We  will  content  ourselves  with  considering  the 
three  doctrines  which  are  at  the  root  of  it — namely, 
that  the  universe  is  over-ruled  by  some  supreme 
intelligence,  who  has  for  his  special  object  the 
highest  good  of  man;  that  each  man  is  a  self- 
directing  personality,  answerable  as  such  to  the 
supreme  intelligence  for  his  conduct;  and  that  his 
life  here  derives  an  infinite  importance  from  the 
fact  that  it  will  be  prolonged  and  completed  for 
better  or  worse  hereafter.  These  doctrines  were, 
till  a  comparatively  recent  time,  accepted  without 
question  by  an  overwhelming  majority  in  all 

4 


TWO    FALSE    METHODS    OF   APOLOGETIC 

civilized  countries.  But  with  the  extraordinary 
advance  in  our  knowledge  of  the  sensible  universe 
which  has  taken  place  during  the  last  hundred 
years,  they  not  only  seem  to  have  been  deprived 
of  all  the  positive  evidences  in  their  favor,  but 
have  also  been  confronted  with  a  new  conception 
of  existence  which  seems  to  have  rendered  them 
in  their  very  nature  incredible.  The  practical 
result  at  the  present  time  is  this.  Even  those  who 
are  satisfied  to  let  these  doctrines  go  are  conscious 
of  some  sort  of  loss,  and  desire  to  find  a  substi- 
tute for  them;  while  others,  who  believe  that  no 
substitute  is  possible,  are  looking  about  for  some 
means  of  defending  them  which  may  justify  them 
in  retaining  their  faith  or  help  them  in  getting  it 
back  again. 

It  is  to  this  latter  class  alone  that  the  present 
volume  is  addressed  —  a  class  whose  position  I 
will  illustrate  by  an  extreme  but  typical  example 
of  it. 

This  shall  be  the  case  of  a  Christian — if  we  like, 
we  may  suppose  him  to  be  a  clergyman — who  is  at 
once  a  sincere  believer  and  a  man  of  education  and 
intelligence.  He  is  a  man  who,  like  many  others, 
can  say  without  affectation  that  he  has  known 
God  as  a  direct  spiritual  experience,  and  that  the 
existence  of  God  and  of  his  own  soul  as  created  by 
God  is  a  fact  of  which  he  is  as  absolutely  certain 
as  he  is  of  the  existence  of  London.  At  the  same 
time  such  a  man  cannot  help  being  aware  that  the 
modern  study  of  nature  has  revealed  to  us  facts 

5 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF   RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  its  own  with  which  his  religious  certainties  can- 
not be  well  reconciled.  Nature,  which  for  him  is 
the  work  of  an  all-wise  goodness,  is  exhibited  by 
science  as  full  of  imperfections  and  cruelties.  His 
own  consciousness — his  soul — which  for  him  is  an 
imperishable  entity,  is  exhibited  by  science  as  a 
s  function  of  his  perishing  body.  Now  being,  as  we 
suppose  him  to  be,  an  educated  and  thinking  man, 
he  cannot  thrust  science  altogether  on  one  side. 
Whenever,  in  writing  a  sermon,  he  turns  on  the 
electric  light,  he  has  evidence  before  him  that  the 
methods  of  science  are  sound  and  many  of  its 
conclusions,  undreamed  of  in  his  father's  days,  are 
correct.  He  is  bound,  indeed,  to  agree  with  Her- 
bert Spencer  that  "science  is  simply  a  higher  de- 
velopment of  common  knowledge,  and  that  if 
science  is  repudiated,  all  common  knowledge  must 
be  repudiated  along  with  it."  Yet  since,  as  at 
present  interpreted,  the  facts  of  science  collectively 
are  at  variance  with  the  facts  of  which  he  is  himself 
most  certain,  he  is  bound  to  assure  himself  that 
science  must  be  wrong  somewhere;  and  strong  in 
this  conviction,  he  might  wish  to  ignore  the  enemy. 
Theoretically,  he  could  afford  to  do  so ;  but  he  finds, 
practically,  that  he  cannot.  Its  opposition,  though 
it  does  not  weaken  his  faith,  molests  it,  like  a  devil 
in  the  desert  disturbing  a  hermit's  prayers;  and 
knowing  that  to  others  it  is  far  more  formidable 
than  to  himself,  he  is  impelled  for  their  sake,  as 
well  as  for  his  own,  to  face  it.  Armed,  then,  with 
the  assumption  that  science  must  be  wrong  some- 

6 


TWO    FALSE    METHODS    OF    APOLOGETIC 

where,  he  addresses  himself  to  his  task,  which  is 
simply  to  find  out  where. 

A  convinced  believer  of  the  kind  just  described 
is  far  from  representing  the  whole  or  even  the 
majority  of  those  to  whom  I  venture  to  hope  that 
the  present  volume  may  be  acceptable,  but  he 
represents  them  at  all  events  in  the  fact  that  he 
desires  to  defend  belief.  He  also  represents  a 
class  the  importance  of  which  exceeds  its  numbers ; 
for  it  is  the  class  from  which  most  of  our  professed 
apologists  spring — the  men  whose  methods,  in  deal- 
ing with  scientific  difficulties,  mark  the  general 
level  of  apologetics  at  the  present  day.  Let  us 
consider  what  their  methods  are. 

We  need  not  quarrel  with  such  men  because,  in 
defending  beliefs,  the  truth  of  which  they  assume 
at  starting,  against  a  science  which  seems  to  con- 
flict with  them,  they  assume  some  error  in  science 
before  they  have  begun  to  look  for  it.  This  pro- 
cedure, though  it  has  its  drawbacks,  is  nevertheless 
unavoidable.  All  that  concerns  us  is  the  manner 
in  which  the  search  is  made.  And  it  is  here,  at 
the  very  outset  of  their  task,  that  our  apologists 
go  astray.  Their  search,  however  honest,  is  pros- 
ecuted in  wrong  directions,  and  the  more  indus- 
triously they  seek  the  further  they  are  from  finding. 

Stated  briefly,  what  happens  is  this.  The  scien- 
tific explanation  of  existence  conflicts  with  the 
religious  explanation  because  it  exhibits  existence 
as  a  single  necessary  process,  man  being  a  momen- 
tary product  of  it,  God  being  the  process  as  a  whole, 

7 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF   RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

and  no  personal  relation  between  these  two  being 
possible.  Such  being  the  explanation  which  our 
apologists  are  pledged  to  invalidate,  they  seek  to 
invalidate  it  in  one  or  other  of  two  ways,  which 
we  may  call  respectively  the  clerical  way  and  the 
philosophic.  The  clerical  way  is  to  scrutinize 
science  in  detail,  with  a  view  to  showing  that  the 
process  which  science  represents  as  automatic 
would  break  down  at  this  point  or  at  that  if  it 
were  not  for  the  help  and  interference  of  a  living 
power  external  to  it.  The  philosophic  way,  which 
is  now  growing  in  popularity,  is  to  accept  the 
scientific  explanation  as  complete  within  its  own 
limits,  but  to  reduce  it  to  insignificance  by  means 
of  a  system  of  idealism,  according  to  which  the 
entire  subject-matter  of  science — namely,  the  physi- 
cal universe,  our  own  brains  included — is  a  dream 
which  owes  its  existence  to  our  own  immortal 
minds. 

Now  both  those  methods,  however  different 
otherwise,  have  the  same  immediate  object.  They 
both  of  them  aim  at  showing  how  little  science  can 
explain  to  us,  without  any  previous  endeavor  to 
understand  how  much.  Herein  lies  the  funda- 
mental error  of  both.  If  we  wish  to  realize  clearly 
how  little  science  can  explain  to  us,  we  must  set 
ourselves  to  realize  clearly  how  much  it  can  explain 
first ;  and  if  the  apologists  of  religion  will  only  have 
the  courage  to  leave  their  faiths  at  home,  like  a 
wife  whose  fidelity  they  can  trust,  and  consider 
science  for  a  time  without  any  direct  reference  to 

8 


TWO    FALSE    METHODS    OF    APOLOGETIC 

them,  they  will  not  only  see  that  the  defects,  which 
at  present  they  impute  to  it,  are  imaginary;  but 
they  will  also  gradually  detect  in  it  defects  of  a 
deeper  kind,  a  patient  consideration  of  which  will 
be  far  more  serviceable  for  their  purpose. 

What  these  deeper  defects  in  the  scientific  ex- 
planation are — in  what  ways  the  doctrines  of  re- 
ligion may  be  justified  as  a  necessary  supplement 
to  it — and  in  what  ways  the  contradiction  between 
the  two  may  be  reconciled,  or  at  all  events  rendered 
intellectually  tolerable — are  the  questions  to  which 
most  of  the  present  volume  will  be  devoted. 

It  will  be  necessary,  however,  to  preface  its  main 
or  positive  argument  by  a  plain  though  short  ex- 
position of  the  reasons  why  both  the  methods — the 
clerical  and  the  philosophic  equally  —  at  present 
adopted  by  the  apologists  of  religion  must  be 
abandoned.  The  reasons  for  abandoning  the  cleri- 
cal method  can  be  explained  in  a  short  chapter. 
The  reasons  for  abandoning  the  philosophic  method 
will  detain  us  somewhat  longer. 


II 

THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

THE  clerical  method,  as  employed  at  the  present 
day,  is  a  continuation,  modified  to  suit  circum- 
stances, of  the  method  which  sprang,  like  Minerva, 
from  the  head  of  the  Christian  Churches  the  mo- 
ment the  voice  of  science  first  made  itself  heard. 
Its  character  will  be  best  explained  by  historical 
illustrations  of  its  employment. 

The  first  great  blow,  generally  felt  to  be  such, 
which  science  inflicted  on  religion  as  then  under- 
stood was  that  which  destroyed  the  old  geocentric 
astronomy.  It  was  felt  at  once  that  if  the  earth 
were  merely  a  paltry  ball,  wheeling  and  spinning 
with  other  balls  round  a  body  incomparably  larger, 
the  Deity's  great  white  throne  on  a  super-terrestrial 
firmament,  with  the  localized  court  of  heaven  and 
other  allied  conceptions,  sank  to  the  level  of  symbols 
which,  if  treated  as  facts,  were  absurdities.  Con- 
sequently, the  entire  theological  intellect  of  Europe 
was  occupied  for  generations  in  attempting  to  prove 
that  Galileo  was  wrong,  and  that  the  heliocentric 
astronomy  was  a  damnable  and  grotesque  error. 
The  next  great  blow  came  from  modern  geology, 

10 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

which  was  felt  at  once  as  a  menace  to  the  doctrine 
of  direct  creation,  and  accordingly  the  Churches 
attacked  modern  geology  no  less  vigorously  than 
they  had  attacked  modern  astronomy.  Then  came 
a  third  blow  of  a  yet  more  staggering  kind — namely, 
that  inflicted  by  the  discovery  of  the  process  of 
organic  evolution,  which  was  felt  to  be  fatal  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  direct  creation  of  man,  as  geology 
was  to  the  doctrine  of  the  direct  creation  of  worlds. 
And  this  has  been  followed,  during  the  last  twenty- 
five  years,  by  other  discoveries  relating  to  brain 
and  consciousness,  the  origin  and  reproduction  of 
life,  and  the  ultimate^constitutipn  of  matter,  in  all 
of  which  a  tendency  is  detected  by  the  clerical 
mind  to  identify  man's  soul  with  the  organic  life  of 
his  body,  and  the  organic  life  of  his  body  with  the 
general  process  of  the  universe.  And  at  each  of 
these  latter  stages  the  old  drama  has  repeated 
itself.  The  clerical  party  has  endeavored  to  con- 
vict science  of  falsehood.  The  entire  principle  of 
Darwinism  was  denounced  from  a  thousand  pulpits 
as  the  dream  of  a  fool,  which  was  no  less  absurd 
than  impious,  and  since  then  an  army  of  apologists 
have  taken  their  stand  on  the  doctrine  that  con- 
sciousness is  essentially  a  something  distinct  from 
matter,  and  that  organic  matter  is,  as  a  parallel 
fact,  miraculously  different  from  the  common  stuff 
of  the  universe. 

And  what  has  been  the  result  of  this  long  series 
of  onslaughts?  Science  advances  slowly.  Most 
of  its  great  discoveries  have  to  pass  through  a 

ii 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF   RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

period  during  which  their  admitted  and  unavoid- 
able incompleteness  can  be  made  to  pass  muster 
with  many  as  a  disproof  of  their  truth;  and  the 
apologists  have  sometimes  enjoyed  the  semblance 
of  a  passing  triumph ;  but  the  final  issue  of  every 
engagement  has  been  the  same.  The  clerical  party 
has  suffered  an  ignominious  defeat,  and  has  had  to 
admit  on  its  knees  what  it  set  out  to  deny.  Such 
was  the  issue,  as  we  all  know,  of  its  war  against 
modern  astronomy;  such  was  the  issue  of  its  war 
against  modern  geology;  and  such  has  been,  or  is 
being,  the  issue  of  each  successive  action  in  its 
campaign  against  the  sciences  which  bear  upon 
human  life.  Thus  all  the  special  features  by  which 
it  attempted  to  show  that  the  organism  of  man  is 
distinguished  from  that  of  the  higher  animals  have 
been  ultimately  found  to  exist  in  the  higher  animals 
also.  So,  too,  the  famous  contention  that  thought 
must  be  distinct  from  matter,  because  matter  and 
consciousness  are  essentially  disparate  things,  has 
at  last,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  been  robbed  of 
its  apparent  force  by  the  discovery  that  mentation 
may  take  place  apart  from  consciousness  altogether, 
and  that  thought,  which  is  unconscious  and  con- 
sequently impersonal,  is  a  much  more  extensive 
process  than  thought  which  is  personal  and  con- 
scious. It  remains  for  us  to  notice  one  incident 
more.  The  doctrine  that  organic  and  inorganic 
phenomena  are  discontinuous,  and  that  therefore 
the  former  must  have  owed  their  origin  to  a 
miracle,  was  based  by  the  clerical  apologists  on 

^  *~r 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

what  they  took  to  be  the  established  fact,  that  the 
simplest  organic  cell  was  possessed  of  a  certain 
activity  to  which  nothing  analogous  exists  in  the 
brute  inorganic  atom.  And  now  what  is  happen- 
ing? The  inorganic  atom  —  the  brute  lifeless  unit 
—is  appearing  as  a  unit  no  longer,  but  as  a  micro- 
cosmic  cell  itself,  and  is  exhibiting  those  very 
processes  on  the  demonstrable  absence  of  which 
the  clerical  defenders  of  religion  had  elected  to 
take  their  stand.  The  history,  in  short,  of  this 
school  of  apologists  may  be  summed  up  by  saying 
that  whenever  its  members  have  united  to  deny, 
to  denounce,  to  ridicule  any  scientific  discovery  of 
obvious  and  far-reaching  importance,  that  dis- 
covery has  been  on  the  eve  of  being  placed  beyond 
all  doubt.  Driven,  as  this  party  has  been,  from 
one  rallying-point  to  another,  it  has  found  each 
successive  position  as  untenable  as  the  last. 

Such  an  unbroken  series  of  failures,  all  of  them 
identical  in  kind,  might  have  taught  those  who 
have  experienced  them  to  suspect  that  their  at- 
tack miscarries,  because  they  are  pointing  their 
guns  in  a  radically  wrong  direction  —  that  they  fail 
to  discover  the  "rifts"  or  "gaps"  or  "breaks" 
through  which  they  hope  to  see  the  divine  inter- 
ference shining,  for  the  simple  reason  that  no  such 
rifts  exist  —  that  they  fail  when  they  attack  science, 
as  they  do,  on  its  own  grounds,  because  man  and 
the  universe,  when  studied  as  science  studies  them, 
neither  can  have,  nor  require  to  have,  any  other 
explanation  than  that  which  science  actually  or  po- 


^&uJL+*~ 

\JL      U^-tV^Ctf    In         ^W'M/tiftAtCM     4     "3  ,.  Ai 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

tentially  offers  us,  this  explanation  being  summed 
up  in  the  principle  with  which  science  starts 
as  its  postulate,  and  which  it  verifies  as  its  last 
conclusion,  that  all  phenomena,  from  the  stars  to 
the  thoughts  of  man,  result  from  a  single  system 
of  interconnected  causes,  or  are  so  many  modes 
of  a  single  undivided  substance,  which  are  all  alike 
transient  and  all  equally  necessary. 

To  the  man  possessed  of  strong  religious  beliefs, 
such  a  conclusion  doubtless  must,  as  it  stands,  be 
shocking;  but  in  proportion  to  the  sureness  with 
which  these  beliefs  are  held  by  him  he  will  be  sure 
also  that  no  facts,  however  seemingly  inconsistent 
with  them,  can,  if  proved  to  be  facts,  be  incon- 
sistent with  them  in  reality.  If,  therefore,  when 
tested  by  the  methods  of  scientific  observation, 
which  are  merely,  as  we  have  seen,  the  methods  of 
common  knowledge  developed,  the  scientific  ex- 
planation of  the  universe  is  seen  to  be  self -suffi- 
cient, he  gains  nothing  by  trying  to  persuade  him- 
self that  it  is  less  self-sufficient  than  it  is.  The 
only  reasonable  course  for  him  is  to  grasp  his 
nettle  boldly  and  surrender  himself  to  the  guid- 
ance of  science,  let  it  carry  him  where  it  will, 
trusting  that  its  facts  will  ultimately  coincide  with 
his  religious  faith,  without  any  effort  on  his  part  to 
tamper  with  them  as  he  goes  along.  Let  those 
apologists,  then,  who  have  hitherto,  wholly  or  par- 
tially, relied  on  what  I  have  described  as  the 
clerical  method  of  apologetics,  consent,  provision- 
ally at  all  events,  to  lay  that  method  aside  and 

14 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

adopt  the  explanation  of  science  precisely  as 
science  gives  it  to  us. 

What  this  explanation  is,  as  given  to  us  at  the 
present  day,  is  very  imperfectly  understood  by 
most  of  those  who  attack  it.  I  will  give  a  brief 
account  of  its  most  important  features. 

The  sum  of  things  accessible  to  ordinary  knowl- 
edge was  supposed,  till  very  lately,  to  consist  of 
three  separate  elements — namely,  the  inorganic 
universe,  organic  life,  and  the  mind.  The  first 
was  regarded  as  made  up  of  "brute  matter,"  into 
which  had  been  introduced  from  without  a  certain 
principle  of  motion;  the  second  was  regarded  as 
due  to  the  presence  of  some  further  principle  ab- 
solutely wanting  except  in  organic  bodies ;  and  the 
third — the  conscious  mind,  and  the  human  mind 
especially — was  regarded  as  being,  in  virtue  of 
its  very  nature,  even  more  distinct  from  the  prin- 
ciple of  organic  life  than  the  principle  of  organic 
life  is  from  matter  and  material  movement.  The 
result  of  the  later  progress  of  scientific  discovery 
has  been  to  show  us  that  these  sharp  distinctions 
between  the  three  elements  are  imaginary. 

With  the  doctrine  that  the  earth  was  developed 
from  matter  in  a  simpler  form,  by  a  process  of  slow 
evolution,  instead  of  by  a  series  of  miracles,  not 
even  clerical  apologists  any  longer  quarrel.  They 
are  ceasing  to  quarrel  also  with  the  doctrine  that 
organic  life,  human  and  animal  equally,  has  its 
origin  in  the  simple  organic  cell.  On  accepted 
conclusions  such  as  these  it  is  needless  to  insist 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

here.  In  this  connection  all  that  requires  to  be 
mentioned  is  that,  as  I  have  said  already,  the  sup- 
posed essential  differences  between  the  simplest 
living  matter  and  the  matter  which  is  called  life- 
less are  now  disappearing  in  the  light  of  recent 
discoveries  as  to  what  the  ultimate  structure  of 
matter  and  atoms  is.  Atoms,  says  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  just  like  organic  bodies,  "instead  of  hav- 
ing been  manufactured  (once  for  all)  in  an  infinite- 
"  ly  distant  past,  appear  to  be  disintegrating,  and 
'therefore  necessarily  reforming  here  and  now"; 
and  we  at  last  see  that  fundamentally  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic  are  "one." 

Now  thus  far,  apart  from  mere  questions  of 
evidence,  there  is  nothing  to  provoke  incredulity 
in  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  man.  The  only  point 
which  will  strike  him  as  presenting  any  inherent 
difficulty  is  the  break,  which  seems  to  be  impass- 
able, between  the  brain-stuff  and  the  conscious 
.mind.  And  that  something  occurs  here  which  is 
'  altogether  perplexing  was  the  opinion  even  of 
scientists  such  as  Huxley  and  Tyndall.  They 
looked  on  the  brain  and  consciousness  as  essentially 
the  same  fact;  but  in  the  brain  matter  exhibits 
itself  under  two  aspects,  whereas  in  every  other 
"form  of  complication"  it  exhibits  itself  under 
only  one.  Why,  then,  they  asked,  should  the  brain 
alone  be  "yoked  to  this  mysterious  companion, 
consciousness  "  ? 

Since  the  days  when  they  used  such  language 
the  situation  has  doubly  changed — in  one  way,  be- 

16 
/W--1   >L*e>-^ 

i  7« 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

cause  men  have  had  time  to  reflect  on  the  problem  ; 
in  another,  because  they  have  made  certain  new 
discoveries  relating  to  it. 

The  way  in  which  it  has  been  changed  by  more 
mature  reflection  is  as  follows:  If  we  consider  the 
nature  of  our  knowledge,  we  shall  all  of  us  agree 


with  Descartes  that  our  first  and  fundamental  cer-(Bi>AtA* 
tainty  is  that  of  our  own  existence.  Our  next  cer-^ 
tainty  is  the  existence  of  what  we  call  the  material 
world.  Now  in  the  order  of  actual  things,  though  s 
not  in  our  personal  consciousness,  the  fact  that 
lies  nearest  to  ourselves,  according  to  our  present 
knowledge,  is  the  fact  that  the  self  of  each  of  us  — 
the  thinking  and  feeling  "I"  —  is  a  mental  and 
material  existence  at  one  and  the  same  time;  and 
if  only  men  could  envisage  the  processes  of  their 
own  brains,  and  if  they  paid  no  attention  to  matter 
of  any  other  kind,  their  normal  conception  of 
matter  would  be  thought  visible  and  extended. 
The  conception  of  thought  as  existing  apart  from 
brain  would  be  like  the  conception  of  breathing  as 
existing  apart  from  lungs.  We  should  see  the 
brain  think,  as  we  see  a  friend  smile  or  frown  ;  and 
in  tracing  the  connection  of  the  brain  with  the 
other  parts  of  the  organism,  and  the  connection  of 
the  organism  with  the  matter  of  the  inorganic 
universe,  what  we  really  should  have  to  explain, 
in  relation  to  our  own  certainties,  would  not  be  the 
presence  of  consciousness  as  the  counterpart  of  the 
matter  of  the  brain,  but  what  at  all  events  seems  to 
be  its  absence  from  matter  when  arranged  otherwise. 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

The  old  way  of  putting  the  problem  is,  there- 
fore, thus  inverted,  and,  according  to  popular 
opinion,  the  mystery  involved  in  it  should  dis- 
appear; for  that  thought  should  be  absent  from 
matter  is,  according  to  popular  opinion,  merely 
what  we  all  expect,  and  no  explanation  is  required 
of  it.  Popular  opinion  is,  however,  here  in  error. 
A  problem  remains,  whether  we  call  it  a  mystery 
or  no ;  and  a  solution  of  it  has  been  supplied,  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty-five  years,  by  one  of  the  most 
important  discoveries  in  the  annals  of  advancing 
knowledge.  This  is  the  discovery  that,  contrary 
to  all  traditional  opinion,  individual  consciousness 
and  mind  are  by  no  means  co-extensive  and  iden- 
tical, but  that,  though  without  mind  there  can 
certainly  be  no  such  consciousness,  such  conscious- 
ness is  by  no  means  essential  to  the  existence  and 
the  operations  of  mind — that  the  larger  part,  in- 
deed, of  the  mental  life  of  each  of  us,  with  its 
memories,  affections,  reasonings,  and  purposive 
actions,  lies  as  much  outside  the  sphere  of  the  con- 
scious Ego  as  the  process  of  digestion  does  or  the 
growth  of  our  nails  and  hair.  That  such  is  the 
case  has  been  shown  beyond  all  doubt  by  the 
study  of  the  brain,  of  hypnotism,  and  of  mental 
pathology,  which  has  taken  place  during  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  which,  fortified  by  a 
series  of  innumerable  observations  and  experi- 
ments, has  resulted  in  what  is  practically  a  new 
psychological  system. 

In  this  way  the  chasm  which  seemed  to  yawn 
18 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

between  brain-matter  which  is  known  to  us  in  the 
form  of  conscious  thought,  and  matter  which  is 
not  "yoked  to  this  mysterious  companion,  con- 
sciousness," has  been  filled  up  by  matter  in  a  third 
and  intermediate  condition — namely,  matter  which 
is  not  egotistically  conscious,  but  which,  neverthe- 
less, thinks. 

The  division,  therefore,  between  mental  and 
merely  organic  life  has  disappeared  like  the  divis- 
ion between  organic  matter  and  inorganic,  and  the 
three  strata  of  things — the  lifeless,  the  organic, 
and  the  mental — have  thus  been  fused  into  one 
continuous  whole.  That  is  to  say,  we  have,  in  a 
gradual  and  unbroken  ascent,  first,  matter  com- 
monly called  lifeless,  but  really  consisting  of  atom- 
cells  full  of  inward  activity;  then,  matter  which 
lives  in  the  sense  recognized  by  the  biologist,  but 
which  is  by  the  biologist  not  recognized  as  think- 
ing; then,  matter  which  thinks,  remembers,  and 
even  purposes — which  performs  the  functions  of 
mind  —  but  without  personal  consciousness;  and, 
lastly,  matter  which  is  mind,  with  a  personal  con- 
sciousness emerging  from  it. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  all  incompleteness  of  de- 
tail (and  it  would  be  idle  to  expect  that  we  can 
ever  exhaust  reality),  science  presents  us  with  a 
descriptive  or  quasi -pictorial  record,  already  prac- 
tically complete  in  all  its  salient  features,  of  a  proc- 
ess which,  beginning,  let  us  say,  as  the  movements 
of  some  cosmic  nebula,  results  at  last  automatical- 
ly in  the  mind  and  the  personality  of  man.  I  call 

19 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

this  a  descriptive  record  rather  than  an  explana- 
tion because,  though  the  final  result — namely,  our 
own  conscious  existence  —  is  primarily  known  to 
ourselves  in  subjective  terms  of  consciousness,  the 
process  resulting  in  this  is,  as  dealt  with  by  science, 
a  something  which  is  observed  from  without,  not 
comprehended  from  within.  This  remark  applies 
to  invisible  force  just  as  much  as  it  does  to  tangible 
mass;  for  force  is  known  to  science  only  through 
its  observed  effects,  and  is  in  itself  like  some 
boxed-up  spring  or  weight,  of  whose  nature  we 
know  nothing  except  what  we  are  able  to  infer 
from  observing  the  movements  of  some  visible 
piece  of  clock-work  which  it  actuates.  The  scien- 
tific presentation  of  existence  has,  then,  its  obvious 
limitations,  and  it  is  only  with  these  limitations 
that  the  apologist  who  has  attacked  it  hitherto, 
is  asked,  provisionally  at  all  events,  to  accept  it 
as  unassailable. 

He  will  very  likely  answer  that  he  cannot  ac- 
cept our  invitation,  because  the  claims  of  science, 
even  as  thus  limited,  are  bound  to  result  in  a 
system  of  pure  materialism.  We  shall  presently 
see  that  this  statement  is  quite  untrue.  It  must, 
however,  be  admitted  that  the  scientific  presen- 
tation of  things,  though  it  does  not  result  in  ma- 
terialism, does  result  in  something  which  is  to  the 
defender  of  religion  in  one  respect  just  as  objec- 
tionable, for  it  gives  us  from  first  to  last  a  sys- 
tem of  pure  determinism.  One  of  the  principal 
reasons  why  materialism  is  inconsistent  with  the 

20 


THE    CLERICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

doctrines  of  religion  is  not  that  it  represents  our 
minds  as  the  products  of  something  that  is  not 
mind,  but  that  it  represents  our  wills  as  deter- 
mined for  us  by  something  that  is  not  ourselves. 
Whether  we  are  the  puppete  of  outside  matter  or 
the  puppets  of  outside  spirit,  our  position  is,  from 
the  religious  point  of  view,  just  as  hopeless  in  the 
latter  case  as  in  the  former;  and  to  reduce  us  to 
puppets  of  some  sort  or  other,  by  linking  our 
whole  lives  to  general  process  of  the  universe,  is 
a  necessary  outcome  of  the  whole  scientific  scheme. 
But  to  recognize  that  a  doctrine  is  disagreeable  is 
not  to  prove  that  it  is  untrue.  Let  us  for  the 
moment  be  content  to  accept  the  fact  that,  so  long 
as  it  is  tried  by  ordinary  scientific  tests,  the  scien- 
tific doctrine  is  invulnerable;  and  let  us  go  on  to 
the  question  of  whether  we  can  undermine  it  by 
philosophy. 


*^V~C*-4 


Ill 

THE    PHILOSOPHICAL    ATTACK    ON    SCIENCE 

WHAT  I  shall  try  to  make  plain  to  the  reader,  in 
this  and  the  two  following  chapters,  is  that  the 
philosophical  attack  on  the  more  extreme  claims 
of  science  fails,  as  at  present  conducted,  even 
more  completely  than  the  clerical,  though  it  fails 
for  a  different  reason.  The  clerical  arguments 
fail  because  science  repels  and  shatters  them.  The 
philosophical  arguments,  on  the  contrary,  fail  be- 
cause science  absorbs  them,  consolidating  its  posi- 
tion by  means  of  what  was  meant  to  destroy  it. 

The  nature  of  this  result,  which  will  have  to  be 
described  in  detail,  can  be  made  generally  intel- 
ligible by  a  simple  and  familiar  illustration  of  it. 
I  refer  to  the  attack  on  science  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  a  system  of  materialism. 

Let  us  first  remark,  then,  that  the  time-honored 
word  materialism  has  two  senses,  which  unluckily 
are  often  confounded.  It  may  mean  either  a  cer- 
tain conception  of  what  matter  is,  or  it  may  mean 
the  doctrine  that  matter,  as  thus  conceived,  is 
everything.  The  conception  of  matter  in  question 
is  one  which,  for  ordinary  purposes,  is  the  work- 


<-**  <-#v^ 


PHILOSOPHY    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

ing  conception  of  every  one.  It  is  shared  by  the 
sublimest  idealist  with  the  drunkard  at  the  street 
corner.  It  is  a  conception  of  matter  as  a  some- 
thing possessing  in  its  own  substance  all  the  quali- 
ties by  which  we  ourselves  know  it,  such  as  color, 
smell,  hardness,  softness,  and  so  forth  —  a  some- 
thing which  is  the  very  type  of  the  homely,  the 
non-mysterious,  the  understandable  —  a  something 
about  which  in  most  of  its  forms  we  all  of  us  know 
c  verything;  and  of  the  things  known  about  it, 
one  of  the  most  obvious  is  the  fact  that  it  possesses 
in  itself  nothing  like  life  or  mind.  Naturally,  then, 
a  man,  whatever  his  scientific  qualifications,  who 
started  with  matter  as  conceived  of  in  this  popu- 
lar way,  and  then  undertook  to  present  us  with 
life  and  mind  as  the  products  of  it,  might  easily 
be  convicted  of  the  crudest  of  self-contradictions, 
and  his  doctrine  might  be  called  materialism,  as 
a  just  term  of  reproach. 

Now  many  men  of  science,  when  science  was 
yet  in  its  infancy,  were  doubtless  betrayed  into  a 
materialism  of  this  precise  kind,  which  even  the 
criticism  of  the  pulpit  was  not  incompetent  to 
expose.  But  their  error  lay  not  in  the  science  by 
which  they  were  distinguished  from  their  critics; 
it  lay  in  the  conception  of  matter  which  they  and 
their  critics  shared.  Since  the  days,  however, 
when  the  onslaughts  on  science  as  a  system  which 
deduced  life,  with  all  its  ceaseless  activity,  from  a 
substance  essentially  inert,  were  justified  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  case,  two  things  have  hap- 

23 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

pened.  Not  only  has  science  shown  that,  con- 
sidered as  a  pictorial  fact,  matter  is  never  inert  in 
any  form  or  condition,  even  a  brick  being  the  thea- 
tre of  a  greater  internal  activity  than  any  that  a 
philosopher  is  conscious  of  in  his  own  head;  but 
philosophy  has  shown  that  the  old  conception  of 
matter,  though  still  valid  as  ever  for  all  practical 
purposes,  has  no  more  relation  to  the  actual  truth 
of  things  than  the  old  conception  of  the  sun's  ris- 
ing and  setting  has,  which  for  practical  purposes 
remains  equally  valid,  but  which  every  child  knows 
to  be  in  itself  an  absurdity.  Philosophy  has 
shown  us  that  all  those  familiar  qualities  by  which 
matter  is  revealed  to  us,  and  which  were  once  at- 
tributed to  itself,  do  not  reside  in  itself  and  can- 
not possibly  do  so,  but  are  merely  so  many  effects 
produced  by  it  in  our  own  consciousness.  One 
stock  illustration  of  this  fact  will  be  sufficient  for 
us.  The  redness  which  a  guard  or  an  engine-driver 
attributes  to  the  glass  of  a  signal-lamp  cannot  in 
reality  reside  in  the  glass  itself.  It  obviously  re- 
sides in  the  vision  of  the  man  who  looks  at  it ;  for 
the  glass  which  is  red  for  most  men,  for  color- 
blind men  is  green.  And  to  every  quality  which 
makes  up  our  working  conception  of  matter  the 
same  argument  applies.  All  these  qualities  are 
effects  produced  in  ourselves  by  a  cause  of  which, 
in  itself,  we  do  know  and  can  know  nothing,  ex- 
cept that  it  cannot  be  what  we  commonly  call 
material. 

What,  then,  has  been  the  result  of  the  establish- 
24 


PHILOSOPHY    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

ment  of  this  philosophic  principle  in  respect  of 
the  claim  of  science  to  deduce  life  from  matter? 
Has  it  been  what  was  hoped  for  by  those  who 
imagined,  as  defenders  of  religion,  that  this  doc- 
trine of  life  could  be  discredited  by  arguments 
drawn  from  the  fact  that  it  was  once  associated 
by  its  exponents  with  a  materialism  now  exploded  ? 
Has  it  done  anything  to  weaken  the  scientific  doc- 
trine that  the  individual  life  is  the  necessary  and 
dissoluble  product  of  a  necessary  process  of  some 
sort,  external  to  and  unalterable  by  itself?  On 
the  contrary,  the  refutation  of  materialism  as  a 
conception  of  what  matter  is,  has,  instead  of 
weakening  the  above  doctrine,  strengthened  it 
by  eliminating  the  one  element  in  it  open  to  rea- 
sonable objection — namely,  the  assumption  that 
matter  is  known  to  be  inert  and  dead,  or  even  the 
assumption  that  it  is  less  active  than  mind. 

Thus  the  scientific  doctrine  which  religion  de- 
sires to  invalidate,  that  man  is  the  passing  product 
of  a  something  external  to  himself,  into  which  he 
returns  at  death  but  with  which  he  can  have  no 
dealings,  and  as  to  whose  inward  character  he  can 
gain  no  definite  knowledge,  emerges  from  its  bat- 
tle with  philosophy  changed  in  one  way  only. 
It  has  appropriated,  instead  of  succumbing  to,  the 
weapons  that  were  directed  against  it.  It  is  no 
longer  a  doctrine  of  mere  empirical  science ;  it  has 
become  a  doctrine  of  mental  philosophy  also. 

I  have  given  a  prominent  place  to  the  above 
philosophic  incident,  not  because  it  turns  on  the 

25 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

arguments  which  specially  concern  us  here — for 
these  are  far  more  ambitious  than  a  mere  refuta- 
tion of  materialism — but  because  it  will  prepare 
the  reader  to  understand  the  results  on  science  of 
the  newest  class  of  criticism  by  which  our  philo- 
sophic apologists  are  endeavoring  at  this  moment 
to  undermine  or  to  minimize  its  authority. 


IV 
IDEALISM    VERSUS  SCIENCE 

IN  order  to  appreciate  the  arguments  which  are 
at  the  present  moment  being  used  against  science 
by  the  philosophic  apologists  of  religion,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  consider  certain  of  the  salient 
features  by  which  modern  philosophy  generally, 
as  distinct  from  science,  is  characterized. 

The  primary  distinction  between  physical  science, 
as  such,  and  all  the  philosophic  systems  by  whose 
aid  it  is  being  now  assailed,  consists  of  the  fact 
that  in  seeking  to  explain  existence,  the  philos- 
ophies start  with  looking  inward  and  science 
starts  with  looking  outward.  Science  seeks  to 
explain  the  human  mind  through  the  universe; 
the  philosophies  to  explain  the  universe  through 
the  human  mind.  To  the  philosophies  which  are 
here  more  particularly  in  question — namely,  those 
which  have  developed  themselves  since  the  days 
of  Kant  and  Berkeley,  this  latter  observation  ap- 
plies in  a  special  way. 

"Modern  astronomy,"  exclaimed  Kant,  "has 
annihilated  my  own  importance."  He  was  merely 
giving  voice  to  a  feeling  which  had  since  the  days 

27 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  Galileo  begun  to  disturb  the  minds  of  all  thought- 
ful men,  and  which  doctors  of  the  Church,  Roman 
and  Protestant  alike,  had  expressed  independent- 
ly in  almost  the  same  phrases.  "If,"  said  a  car- 
dinal, "the  earth  is  merely  an  insignificant  star — 
one  among  many,  which  are  probably  all  inhabited 
— it  becomes  incredible  that  God  should  have  died 
for  man."  Accordingly,  as  has  been  well  observed 
by  a  critic  of  modern  speculation,  the  course  taken 
by  metaphysical  philosophy,  from  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  up  to  the  present  time,  has 
been  largely  determined  by  a  desire  on  the  part 
of  the  philosophers  to  win  back  for  man  the  dig- 
nity which  he  seemed  to  have  lost,  to  turn  the 
tables  on  a  universe  whose  bulk  seemed  to  insult 
him,  and  "revenge  him  on  the  astronomers"  by 
demonstrating  that  his  own  mind  was,  after  all, 
"the  real  constructor  of  nature." 

They  sought  to  achieve  this  object  by  pursuing 
two  inquiries,  one  relating  to  the  means  by  which 
the  human  mind  knows,  the  other  relating  to  the 
character  of  the  external  world  known  by  it. 
With  regard  to  their  conclusions  they  differed 
among  themselves  greatly,  and  fancied  that  they 
differed  a  great  deal  more  than  they  did ;  but  they 
were  with  regard  to  their  starting-point  all  of 
them  in  complete  agreement.  They  all  assumed 
—or,  as  they  preferred  to  say,  they  "posited"— 
the  individual  mind  as  a  sort  of  mental  Melchisidec, 
without  father,  without  mother,  without  descent; 
and  they  then  proceeded  by  interrogating  their 

28 


IDEALISM    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

own  consciousness  to  discover  what  the  nature  of 
this  mind  is. 

How  does  it  get  its  ideas?  That  was  their  first 
question.  Does  it  get  them  from  its  experience 
of  the  universe  whose  brutal  bigness  affronts  it? 
Or  is  it  born  with  them  ?  Unfortunately,  not  even 
the  most  transcendental  of  philosophers  was  able 
to  contend  that  the  mind  is  born  with  all — that 
it  gets  none  from  experience  in  its  course  from 
the  pap-bottle  to  the  grave.  The  question  had 
to  be,  then,  does  it  possess  any  which  experience 
cannot  have  given  it,  and  which,  like  "clouds  of 
glory,"  it  must  have  "trailed"  along  with  it  into 
this  world  from  a  better  one?  Different  philos- 
ophers have  answered  this  question  differently. 
Some  have  been  unable  to  maintain  that  apart 
from  experience  the  human  mind  has  any  ideas 
whatever.  Others  have  contended  that  it  ob- 
viously has  some — one  of  these  "clouds  of  glory" 
being  our  knowledge  that  the  rules  of  arithmetic 
are  necessarily  true  everywhere  and  for  all  eternity, 
which  we  certainly  never  could  have  learned  from 
our  limited  life  here. 

As  to  the  next  question — namely,  that  of  the 
character  of  the  external  world,  our  philosophers 
differ  also.  There  are  practically  three  ways  in 
which  the  external  world  can  be  conceived  by  us. 
One  is  based  on  the  ordinary  materialistic  con- 
ception of  matter,  which  the  clergy  and  their 
earlier  opponents,  as  we  have  seen,  shared,  but 
which  the  clergy  supplemented  with  the  hypothesis 

29 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  an  outside  Power  that  moved  it,  and  their  op- 
ponents did  not,  being  thus  far  at  a  disadvantage. 
This  conception,  as  will  be  evident  from  the  pre- 
vious chapter,  all  the  philosophers  now  in  question 
reject. 

There  remain  two  others,  of  one  of  which — the 
most  obvious — the  previous  chapter  contains  a  suf- 
ficient account.  It  is  a  conception  of  matter,  or 
the  substance  of  external  world,  as  a  something 
which,  even  if  we  call  it  pure  mind  or  spirit,  is 
nevertheless  independent  of  our  own  minds  as 
individuals,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the  minds  of  the 
human  race  collectively. 

The  other  conception  is  of  a  curiously  opposite 
kind.  According  to  this,  the  thing  which  we  call 
matter,  and  all  the  universe  which  we  commonly 
call  material,  would  apart  from  ourselves  have  no 
existence  at  all.  It  would  not,  indeed,  as  Pro- 
fessor James  Ward — a  distinguished  exponent  of 
this  conception  —  admits,  cease  to  exist  with  the 
death  of  any  one  individual,  any  more  than  the 
House  of  Commons  (to  take  his  own  illustration) 
would  cease  to  exist  if  one  of  its  members  quitted 
it ;  but  it  would  cease  to  exist  if  the  whole  human 
race  perished,  just  as  the  House  of  Commons  would 
if  it  had  no  members  left.  This  doctrine,  absurd 
as  we  shall  see  it  to  be,  is  nevertheless  not  so 
meaningless  as  it  seems.  It  is  based  on  the  ad- 
mitted fact  that  we  know  the  world  of  matter 
only  as  the  cause  of  the  effect  produced  by  it  in 
our  own  consciousness.  What  consciousness  gives 

3° 


IDEALISM    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

us,  in  short,  is  nothing  but  a  series  of  experiences. 
Let  us,  then,  take  the  case  of  a  drunken  workman, 
whose  main  experience  is  a  constant  longing  for 
beer,  varied  at  intervals  by  the  pleasure  of  hav- 
ing his  thirst  satisfied.  Constant  thirst,  and  the 
pleasure  of  occasional  drinking  —  this  is  all  that 
his  consciousness  directly  gives  him.  But,  so  the 
argument  will  proceed,  the  workman's  mind,  which 
is  in  this  respect  as  perfect  as  the  mind  of  a  philos- 
opher, does  not  consist  of  passive  consciousness 
only.  It  comprises  also  the  faculty  of  active  in- 
tellect, which  insists  on  reducing  his  passive  ex- 
periences to  order.  Accordingly,  as  if  it  were 
making  a  drawer  tidy,  it  arranges  them  in  two 
portions.  It  puts  the  constant  thirst  on  one  side, 
and  calls  it  the  man's  own  self;  and  it  puts  on  the 
other  side  the  occasional  pleasure  of  drinking,  call- 
ing this  beer,  and  pretending  that  it  is  something 
external  to  him.  It  exhibits  the  universe,  in  short, 
as  a  kind  of  nightmare,  dreamed  by  a  man  who 
has  eaten  too  much  for  supper.  The  reality  under- 
lying the  nightmare  is  a  vague  internal  discom- 
fort ;  but  the  man  explains  it  to  himself  by  imagin- 
ing with  extreme  vividness,  that  a  toad,  an  old 
woman,  or  a  policeman,  is  sitting  on  the  pit  of  his 
stomach. 

Of  the  two  great  schools,  then,  into  which  mod- 
ern philosophy  divides  itself — that  is  to  say,  phi- 
losophy as  distinct  from  physical  science — one  re- 
gards matter,  or  the  universe,  as  something  which, 
even  if  it  is  mind,  is  distinct  from  the  mind  of 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  individual;  while  the  other  regards  it  as  a  sort 
of  dream  or  abstraction,  formed  by  the  mind  from 
its  experiences,  in  order  to  make  them  intelligible. 
Both  schools,  however,  in  spite  of  this  opposi- 
tion, are  reunited  by  their  agreement  as  to  a  far- 
ther point,  which  is  for  the  religious  apologist  of 
much  more  importance  than  the  above.  They 
unite  in  laboring  to  demonstrate  that  the  individ- 
ual mind  is  not  only  passive,  but  constantly  active 
also.  That  those  who  regard  the  universe  as  con- 
structed by  the  mind  itself,  must  insist  on  the 
mind's  activity,  is  of  course  self-evident;  but  the 
other  school  is  in  this  respect  no  less  emphatic. 
Holding,  though  it  does,  that  the  universe  has 
some  real  external  substratum,  whose  existence  is 
in  no  way  contingent  on  that  of  the  human  mind, 
it  nevertheless  maintains  that  the  order  which  the 
mind  discerns  in  it  is  due  to  some  fashioning  ef- 
fort— our  philosophers  call  it  "conation" — which 
is  exerted  by  the  mind  itself,  and  which  somewhat 
resembles  the  action  ascribed  to  the  Deity  in 
Genesis,  who  fashioned  a  formless  mass,  already 
existing,  into  a  cosmos.  In  other  words,  it  is 
urged  that  the  mind  is  a  kind  of  loom  which, 
though  not  itself  the  producer  of  its  own  wool, 
weaves  into  intelligible  patterns  the  wool  which 
experience  gives  it.  Thus  Hegel  and  Kant,  how- 
ever they  may  have  differed  otherwise,  agree — to 
quote  the  words  of  an  accomplished  writer — that 
the  conscious  mind  consists  of  "a  web  of  cate- 
gories which  it  throws  over  the  world,  and  by 

32 


IDEALISM    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

means  of  which  it  makes  the  world  intelligible": 
while  T.  H.  Green,  a  leader  of  English  Hegelian- 
ism,  insists  that  "Nature  requires  a  umfyingjin- 
telligence  (resident  in  the  mind  of  man)  to 
arrange  sensation,  which  cannot  be  sensation 
itself." 

Hence  though,  according  to  one  of  these  two 
philosophies,  which  we  may  call  Objective  Ideal- 
ism, the  universe  is  the  work  of  some  genuinely 
external  reality,  and  is,  according  to  the  other, 
which  we  may  call  Subjective  Idealism,  the  work 
of  the  mind  on  its  own  internal  constitution;  ac- 
cording to  both,  the  individual  mind  is  the  active 
hero  of  the  drama,  and  reduces  the  universe  of 
science  to  a  condition  of  inoffensive  helplessness. 
The  religious  bearing  of  all  these  arguments  is 
obvious.  Does  science  detect  in  the  universe  the 
tyranny  of  an  unbroken  determinism?  What 
matter?  This  is  not  a  determinism  which  the 
universe  is  imposing  upon  us,  but  a  determinism 
which  we,  who  are  determined  by  ourselves  only, 
have  for  our  own  purposes  attributed  to,  or  im- 
posed on,  it.  Do  the  various  phenomena  of  the 
universe — our  own  bodies  especially — seem  to  dis- 
solve and  fade  and  pass  away  irrecoverably  ?  What 
matter?  Our  bodies  are  created  by  our  minds. 
The  created  appearance  disappears:  the  creator 
still  persists.  Thus,  says  Professor  Ward,  by  the 
aid  of  a  true  philosophy,  man  learns  to  recognize 
himself  as  a  "spirit  in  a  world  of  spirits";  and 
from  a  world  of  free  spirits,  with  the  universe  as 

33 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

their  humble  pensioner,  the  passage,  he  proceeds, 
to  "the  Supreme  Spirit"  is  easy. 

Such  are  the  arguments,  none  of  them  in  them- 
selves new,  by  which  the  philosophic  apologists  are 
at  the  present  day  endeavoring  to  liberate  religion 
from  the  fetters  of  physical  science.  Now  incon- 
sistent as  are  many  of  these  philosophic  views  with 
one  another,  and  ridiculous  as  some  of  them  must 
seem  to  the  non-philosophic  intelligence,  there  is 
not  one  of  them  that  does  not  embody  the  results 
of  acute  reasoning,  and  from  certain  points  of  view 
does  not  appear  to  be  indisputable.  They  deserve, 
therefore,  in  their  bearings  on  science  to  be  very 
carefully  considered.  Do  they  really  invalidate 
the  authority  of  any  of  the  scientific  conclusions 
from  which,  in  the  interests  of  religion,  we  desire 
to  make  good  our  escape?  This  question  we  will 
consider  in  the  following  chapter ;  but  I  will  briefly 
indicate  in  advance  the  result  to  which  our  inquiry 
will  lead  us.  It  is  one  which  to  many  readers  will 
come  as  a  complete  surprise,  and  which  even  by 
scientific  thinkers  is  as  yet  but  partly  realized. 
What  we  shall  see  is  this — that,  though  many  of 
the  philosophic  conclusions  whose  outlines  we  have 
been  just  considering  are  hopelessly  inconsistent 
with  one  another,  and  though  certain  of  them 
taken  by  themselves,  and  taken  as  they  stand,  are 
absurdities,  science,  instead  of  rejecting,  actually 
absorbs  the  whole  of  them;  and  by  harmonizing 
their  contradictions,  and  turning  their  paradoxes 
into  platitudes,  gives  them  a  cogency  which  they 

34 


IDEALISM    VERSUS    SCIENCE 

never  possessed  before ;  but  that  then,  having  thus 
strengthened  them,  and  placed  them  in  their  prop- 
er order,  it  subjects  them  all  to  its  own  original 
system,  and  exhibits  man,  with  greater  complete- 
ness than  ever,  as  the  helpless  and  vanishing  pup- 
pet of  a  process  which  for  him  means  nothing. 


V 

IDEALISM  AS  ABSORBED   BY  SCIENCE 

THE  foregoing  account  of  philosophy,  as  applied 
to  religious  apologetics  has,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
confined  itself  to  the  broadest  and  most  essential 
doctrines  by  which  the  different  philosophies  are 
either  allied  or  divided.  There  are  a  multitude  of 
subordinate  differences  separating  different  theo- 
rists— some  of  them  really  important,  most  of  them 
absolutely  trivial — to  which  I  have  made  no  allu- 
sion. But  it  is  not,  for  our  immediate  purpose, 
necessary  to  inspect  them  here.  We  will  for  the 
moment  content  ourselves  with  the  doctrines  which 
have  just  been  indicated,  and  see  what  science 
makes  of  them,  as  soon  as  it  gets  them  in  its  grip. 

One  thing  which  it  does  for  them  is,  as  has  just 
been  said,  to  reconcile  those  of  them  which  are, 
for  the  philosophers  themselves,  contradictory.  I 
will  begin  with  an  example  of  this  which  to  most 
readers  will  be  familiar.  It  relates  to  the  rival 
doctrines  with  regard  to  the  origin  of  our  ideas, 
according  to  one  of  which  certain  of  them — such, 
for  example,  as  the  necessity  of  mathematical 
truths — are  not  and  cannot  be  derived  from  any 

36 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

earthly  experience;  while  according  to  the  other, 
they  are  derived  from  nothing  else. 

How  are  we  to  decide  which  of  these  doctrines 
is  true?  Science  settles  the  question  by  asserting 
the  truth  of  both.  The  individual  mind,  it  says, 
of  the  slowly  evolved  creature,  man,  has  ideas 
which  are  prior  to  its  own  individual  experience; 
but  it  has  none  which  were  not  derived  in  the  first 
instance  from  the  experiences  of  its  human  and 
subhuman  progenitors.  From  the  first  moment  in 
which  the  mind -matter  or  general  substance  of 
the  universe  nucleated  itself  into  the  cell  or  cells 
of  which  we  are  the  direct  descendants,  the  in- 
dividual life  began  to  receive  impressions  made  on 
it  by  its  own  environment.  These  impressions  it 
transmitted  to  subsequent  organisms,  its  progeny; 
and  as  the  progeny  grew  more  complex,  so  did  the 
impressions  also,  which  the  organisms  handed  on 
to  organisms  more  complex  still.  The  "connec- 
tion of  things"  was,  in  Spinoza's  language,  to  an 
increasing  degree  reproducing  itself  in  the  "con- 
nection of  ideas."  Here  we  have  an  explanation 
of  the  necessity  of  mathematical  truths.  They 
are  necessary  truths  as  apprehended  by  our  own 
minds,  because  in  the  course  of  millions  of  untold 
years,  no  exception  to  them  ever  has,  or  ever  could 
have,  stamped  itself  on  that  sequence  of  growing 
minds  whose  cumulative  experiences  are  in  our- 
selves. I  shall  point  out  by  and  by  that,  as  to  the 
origin  of  knowledge,  science  suggests  an  explana- 
tion which  goes  deeper  yet  than  this,  and  of  which, 
4  37 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

as  apart  from  science,  philosophy  can  form  no  con- 
ception. But  what  I  have  just  said  is  sufficient 
for  our  immediate  purpose,  which  is  merely  to  il- 
lustrate the  fact  that  two  doctrines  which  for 
philosophers  are  nothing  but  loose  conjectures, 
and  of  which  the  one  is  in  absolute  contradiction 
to  the  other,  may  become,  when  absorbed  by 
science,  a  single  and  precise  truth. 

We  will  now  pass  on  from  this  point  to  the  two 
others  which  occupied  us  in  the  last  chapter.  The 
first  is  the  contention  on  the  part  of  our  philosophic 
apologists,  that  the  mind  is  obviously  independent 
of  the  scientific  universe,  because  the  mind  is  es- 
sentially a  self -active  principle,  which  either  ration- 
alizes the  universe,  or  creates  it,  in  virtue  of  its 
own  "conation."  The  second  is  the  contention  of 
one  party  that  the  universe,  whatever  its  nature, 
does  possess  a  substratum  external  to  the  mind 
that  works  on  it;  and  the  contrary  contention  of 
the  other  party,  that  the  substratum  is  the  mind 
itself.  When  we  have  considered  these  cardinal 
points  once  more,  and  have  seen  how  science  meets 
them,  we  shall  practically  have  considered  every- 
thing that  is  essential  to  our  immediate  subject. 

The  doctrine  of  conation,  on  which  our  philoso- 
phers lay  such  stress,  takes  us  straight  to  the  great 
gulf  by  which  philosophy  and  science  are  sepa- 
rated. The  basis,  the  starting-point  of  philosophy 
as  opposed  to  science,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  philosophers  assume  man's  mind  to  be  an 
entity  without  antecedents,  which  is  the  source  of 

38 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

its  own  activity,  and  which,  if  it  is  not  the  sub- 
stratum of  the  universe  itself,  confronts  that  sub- 
stratum as  a  stranger  from  another  world.  Science, 
on  the  contrary,  shows  it  to  be  a  highly  composite 
product,  having  in  itself  the  workmanship  of  a 
hundred  million  years,  rooted  in  the  universe  which 
it  confronts,  and  drawing  from  this  its  daily  nutri- 
ment. Inquisitive  children  sometimes  embarrass 
their  parents  by  ill-judged  questions  as  to  how 
babies  are  born;  and  mothers  have  been  known  to 
answer  that  they  are  picked  up  in  the  fields.  If 
any  children  ever  believed  this  story,  the  philo- 
sophic opponents  of  science  are,  in  this  respect, 
exactly  like  them.  They  all  of  them  look  on  the 
mind  as  a  baby  not  born  but  found;  and  to  such 
philosophers  science  very  pertinently  replies  that 
they  are  as  much  disqualified  for  understanding 
the  mind's  true  nature,  as  a  man  who  believed  that 
babies  were  picked  up  in  the  fields  would  be  for 
writing  a  treatise  on  the  natural  increase  of  popu- 
lation. 

This  error  of  the  philosophers,  however,  was  till 
recent  times  unavoidable.  There  was  no  reason- 
able alternative  to  it;  and  since  many  of  these 
philosophers,  such  as  Kant  and  Hegel,  for  instance, 
were  men  whose  acuteness  of  intellect  has  rarely 
been  surpassed  or  equalled,  they  reached,  in  spite 
of  their  error  with  regard  to  the  mind's  origin, 
many  conclusions  which  were  correct,  with  regard 
to  its  operations.  Science  recognizes  this.  In 
especial  it  recognizes  the  correctness  of  the  doc- 

39 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

trine  which  we  are  now  considering.  Instead  of 
contesting  what  the  philosophers  say,  to  the  effect 
that  the  process  of  the  mind  is  one  of  action,  effort 
or  conation,  it  translates  the  assertion  into  a  dif- 
ferent language,  and  reproducing  it  with  an  added 
emphasis  of  its  own,  makes  it  intelligible  in  a  way 
which  was,  for  the  philosophers,  impossible. 

The  individual  mind,  it  says,  undoubtedly  is  ac- 
tive— more  active  than  any  bee-hive  in  the  proc- 
ess of  making  honey ;  but  in  this  it  is  not  peculiar. 
There  is  activity  and  conation  in  every  part  of  the 
universe.  There  is  conation  in  the  breaking  sea; 
there  is  conation  in  exploding  gunpowder;  there 
is  conation  in  ginger-beer  when  it  blows  its  cork 
out  of  the  bottle.  But  the  conation  is  in  no  case 
isolated.  It  is  part  of,  and  depends  upon,  the 
universal  conation  of  nature.  The  same  thing  is 
true  of  the  brain,  which  is  the  physical  side  of  the 
mind.  Its  millions  of  cells  are  in  a  state  of  con- 
stant movement:  so  are  the  molecules  that  make 
up  the  cells,  the  atoms  that  make  up  the  molecules, 
and  the  ions  that  make  up  the  atoms ;  but  all  these 
movements  are  part  of  a  wider  process,  and  are 
all  determined  by  extra-cerebral  causes,  just  as  a 
flower  is  determined  by  causes  outside  itself — by 
soil,  by  air,  by  sun,  by  its  parent  plant  or  tree. 
The  brain  is  kept  in  motion,  first,  by  the  bodily 
organism  as  a  whole;  and,  secondly,  by  the  food, 
the  air,  and  so  forth,  which  the  organism  as  a 
whole  assimilates  in  the  brain's  service,  and  which 
maintain  its  activity  and  condition  it.  Let  food 

40 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

cease  to  enter  the  body,  and  the  conation  of  the 
brain  ceases.  "Man  is  what  he  eats,"  is  supposed 
to  be  the  motto  of  materialism.  Properly  inter- 
preted, it  is  merely  a  short  way  of  saying  that  man 
and  the  universe  are  both  of  the  same  unknown 
substance,  and  that  the  activities  which  are  out- 
side man  are  constantly  being  absorbed  into  him, 
in  the  form  of  what  we  call  food,  and  by  the  proc- 
ess which  we  call  digestion.  In  other  words,  the 
conation  of  the  mind  or  brain  is  to  the  conation  of 
the  universe  what  the  reaction  of  a  mechanical 
detent  or  governor  is  to  the  action  of  some  larger 
mechanism  which  it  regulates,  when  the  regulating 
part  and  the  whole  are  actuated  by  the  same  spring. 
The  "unifying  intelligence"  which,  as  Green  says, 
"arranges  sensation,"  and  which  "throws  over  the 
universe  its  web  of  categories,"  is  part  of  the  uni- 
verse over  which  the  web  of  categories  is  thrown. 
Thus  by  its  discovery  of  the  pedigree  and  the 
gradual  formation  of  the  mind,  science,  while 
agreeing  with  the  philosophers  that  the  mind  is 
quite  as  active  as  they  say  it  is,  completely  inverts 
the  significance  with  which  this  fact  was  invested 
by  them.  Instead  of  exhibiting  the  activity  or 
conation  of  the  mind  as  a  proof  that  the  mind  is  , 

t_  *•     ,__— ^^ 

independent  of  the  external  universe,  it  exhibits  it  ^  c^> 
as  illustrating,  in  the  most  vivid  possible  way,  the 
fact  that  the  former  is  entirely  governed  by  the 
latter,  and  is,  indeed,  merely  a  part  of  the  general '  ~ 
cosmic  process. 

Here,    however,    the    reader   may    object    that  , 
41 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

science  is  arguing  on  an  assumption,  which,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  is  still  under  philosophic  dis- 
pute— the  assumption  that  the  external  world  is  in 
some  sense  really  external  to  us,  which,  though 
made  by  one  school  of  philosophers,  is  emphati- 
cally repudiated  by  the  other.  This  is  precisely 
the  point  to  which  we  are  now  coming;  and  the 
manner  in  which  science  deals  with  these  doctrines 
of  the  two  philosophies  will  throw  yet  further 
light  on  its  treatment  of  the  mind's  activity. 

As  stated  and  conceived  of  by  philosophers  who 
theorize  apart  from  science,  both  doctrines  present 
difficulties.  The  Subjective  Idealists  attack  the 
position  of  the  Objective  by  asking  them  how,  if 
the  substratum  of  the  universe  is  external  to  us,  it 
and  the  mind  ever  come  into  contact,  and  why  it 
should  be  necessary  to  assume  an  external  sub- 
stratum at  all.  Our  perceptions,  it  is  admitted  on 
both  sides,  are  all  that  we  know  directly.  Why 
should  not  the  perceptions  themselves  be  the 
essence  of  the  thing  perceived?  The  Objective 
Idealists  reply  to  these  questions  with  others,  of 
which  the  most  important  is  this:  Unless  there  is 
some  external  substratum  independent  of  the  per- 
ceiving minds,  how  do  different  minds  experience 
the  same  perceptions?  How  have  human  beings 
any  common  experiences  whatsoever? 

It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  positions  more  ab- 
solutely opposed  than  these;  neither,  as  it  stands, 
has  any  tangible  proof;  and  yet  science  demon- 
strates each,  and  completely  unites  the  two.  It 

42 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

does  this,  moreover,  in  the  way  that  is  seemingly 
most  unlikely.  While  to  the  ordinary  man  one 
of  the  rival  doctrines — namely,  that  which  allows 
to  the  universe  some  independent  reality — will 
seem  at  once  to  be  in  harmony  with  common- 
sense,  and  is  indeed  a  doctrine  which  science  itself 
assumes,  and  while  the  other  doctrine  will  seem 
to  him  a  piece  of  extravagant  nonsense,  science 
effects  the  reconciliation  of  the  two,  so  far  as  logi- 
cal sequence  is  concerned,  by  allying  itself  with 
the  second  before  it  confirms  the  first.  For  this 
reason  it  is  to  the  second  that  our  more  particular 
attention  must  be  given;  and  not  for  this  reason 
only,  but  for  another  no  less  important.  It  is  this 
second  doctrine — the  doctrine  of  the  Subjective 
Idealists— on  which  the  philosophic  apologists  of 
religion  mainly  rely  now,  as  a  means  of  reducing 
science  with  its  mechanical  necessities  to  impo- 
tence, and  giving  us  back  a  world  of  free  respon- 
sible spirits,  who  may  freely  indulge  in  as  much 
free  religion  as  they  please. 

The  general  idea  at  the  root  of  this  redeeming 
philosophy,  which  an  Anglican  apologist  of  to-day 
has  declared  to  be  "more  than  valuable,"  it  being 
in  his  pious  opinion  a  complete  solvent  of  deter- 
minism, has  been  briefly  explained  already.  The 
mouse  which  emerges  from  a  great  mountain  of 
reasoning  is  the  idea  that  the  universe  is  a  dream 
which  each  man  dreams  in  private.  But  if  this 
seems  too  homely  a  manner  of  expressing  a  truth 
so  important,  we  may  if  we  like  dress  it  up  in  the 

43 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

technical  language  of  its  exponents  from  Fichte 
down  to  Wundt,  Professor  Munsterburg  and  Pro- 
fessor Ward,  and  say  with  the  last  three  that  the 
way  to  save  our  souls  is  to  realize  that  the  uni- 
verse is  "  an  abstraction  from  our  own  unitary  ex- 
perience," and  that  though  the  sun  and  a  man 
who  is  staring  at  it  are  not  quite  the  same  thing, 
they  are  "a  duality  having  its  basis  in  the  unity" 
of  the  man's  nature.  Thus,  to  take  a  favorite  il- 
lustration of  their  own,  when  ten  men  think  that 
they  are  looking  at  the  same  sun,  each  is  really 
contemplating  a  separate  sun  of  his  own.  They 
are  all  merely  experiencing  a  similar  sense  of 
brightness,  which  each  represents  as  caused  by  a 
similar  sun  outside  him.  They  are  like  ten  men 
suffering  from  ten  stomach-aches,  who  all  tell  one 
another  that  they  have  been  eat  upon  by  the  same 
incubus. 

To  the  ordinary  practical  man  it  may  well  seem 
that  the  force  of  raving  could  go  no  further  than 
this.  He  will  argue,  for  instance,  that  if  this  ex- 
planation of  things  be  true,  zoologists  are  like  so 
many  men  suffering  from  delirium  tremens,  who 
are  studying  similar  phantom  snakes  in  their  boots. 
And  the  Subjective  Idealists  themselves,  who  are 
mostly  unpractical  persons  bemused  by  their  own 
subtleties,  if,  instead  of  looking  for  their  illustra- 
tions among  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  for  any  ten 
men  contemplating  them  have  the  same  unalter- 
able aspect,  they  would  take  such  objects  as  a  bis- 
cuit or  a  mutton-chop,  and  then  ask  what  happens 

44 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

if  while  the  ten  are  staring  at  it,  one  of  them  more 
prompt  than  the  rest  makes  so  bold  as  to  eat  it, 
they  might  see  reason  for  sympathizing  with  the 
ordinary  man's  bewilderment. 

The  difficulty,  indeed,  of  the  whole  Subjective 
position  lies  here — or  rather  its  two  difficulties. 
The  first  difficulty  is  to  explain  how  all  the  varieties 
of  men  form  so  many  abstract  universes,  each  of 
which  is  co-incident  with  the  others,  and  which,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  man  who  is  eating  the  mutton- 
chop,  are  similarly  modified  for  the  others  by  this 
one  man's  action.  The  second  difficulty  is  to  ex- 
plain how,  on  the  subjective  hypothesis,  the  in- 
dividual is  to  assure  himself  that  there  are  any 
other  men  at  all.  Of  the  first  difficulty  a  solution 
was  sought  by  Fichte,  in  supposing  that  besides 
the  individual  human  minds  there  is  an  absolute  hu- 
man mind — the  common  foundation  of  everything 
— and  that  of  this  the  individual  human  minds 
are  hypostases.  But  to  suppose  this,  is  to  abandon 
the  subjective  doctrine  altogether.  It  restores  to 
us  our  external  universe  disguised  under  another 
name.  Still,  though  not  solving  the  difficulty,  it 
is  at  all  events  an  attempt  to  solve  it.  But  the 
other  difficulty  of  how,  on  the  subjective  hypoth- 
esis, the  individual  is  ever  to  know  that  there 
are  any  other  minds  but  his  own — of  this,  no  ex- 
planation has  been  attempted,  and,  indeed,  none 
is  conceivable.  The  only  way  to  render  Subjective 
Idealism  logical  is  boldly  to  accept  the  conclusion 
to  which  in  logic  it  inevitably  leads  us — namely, 

45 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

that  only  one  mind  and  one  personality  exists,  and 
that  everything  else  is  the  furniture  of  this  good 
gentleman's  fancy.  The  universe  is  his  own  mind 
unfolding  itself  to  itself,  unpacking  its  own  port- 
manteau, inspecting  its  own  machinery,  and  con- 
stantly surprising  itself  by  discovering  what  a 
complicated  self  it  is. 

That  this  conception  (technically  known  as 
solipsism)  is  absolutely  logical  from  within,  has 
been  admitted  by  all  thinkers,  even  the  most 
muscular  realists,  from  Locke  down  to  Clifford 
and  Huxley.  It  is  indeed  the  only  conclusion 
which  is  so,  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  dealing  with 
existence  by  the  purely  introspective  method. 
And  yet  even  the  Idealists  themselves  are  forced 
to  get  out  of  it  by  a  leap,  and  assume  that  there 
are  other  minds  external  and  analogous  to  their 
own,  for  the  simple  reason  that  a  system  which 
in  point  of  logic  is  perfect,  is  practically  even  for 
them  too  degrading  a  piece  of  folly  to  be  tolerated. 
Let  us  now  consider  this  system,  as  treated  by 
modern  science. 

By  showing  that  the  individual  mind  with  which 
this  system  starts  is  not,  as  this  system  assumes 
it  to  be,  a  self-existing  unit  of  consciousness,  but 
a  complex  organism  evolved  from  simpler  elements, 
of  which  organism  consciousness  covers  a  small 
part  only,  science  has  practically  revolutionized 
our  whole  conception  of  personality,  and  the  bor- 
ders of  what  we  call  self  have  been  by  it  indefinite- 
ly widened.  It  has  shown  that,  if  we  call  a  man's 


_ 

.. 


«  vy 

%*i  • 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

._  ^  -»_*-i'    r^ 

self  those  rational  processes  which  are  going  on 
within  the  limits  of  his  organism,  he  is  as  ignorant 
of  what  is  happening  in  the  larger  part  of  himself 
as  he  is  of  what  is  happening  in  the  moon  or  in 
the  Milky  Way.  It  is  enough,  in  illustration  of 
this,  to  mention  the  case  of  memory,  which  in  each 
of  us  is  a  crowded  register  of  things  which  we 
have  never  noticed,  and  of  which  it  betrays  its 
custody  under  rare  conditions  only.  Science  thus 
includes  in  self  a  whole  region  of  mental  life  which, 
though  comprised  in  the  organism,  is  external  to 
the  conscious  part  of  us,  and  indeed  to  everything 
that  we  can  call  our  own  personal  experience. 
It  thus  breaks  down  the  dividing  line  between  our- 
selves and  the  universe  altogether.  For  just  as 
the  conscious  self  is  a  small  but  integral  part  of 
the  organism  which  it  calls  its  own,  so  is  that  or- 
ganism an  integral  though  a  small  part  of  the 
universe. 

The  conception  of  things  thus  forced  on  us  will 
perhaps  be  made  clearer  if  we  imagine  the  universe 
to  consist  of  nothing  but  a  single  rose-tree,  to- 
gether with  the  soil  which  it  grows  in,  a  sun,  an 
atmosphere,  and  rain;  and  then  imagine  that  from 
the  tree  there  blossoms  a  single  rose.  It  is  obvious 
that  this  rose  will  be  a  flowering  not  of  its  own 
tree  only,  but  of  the  soil,  the  sunlight,  the  air,  and 
the  rain  also.  Our  whole  little  imaginary  universe 
will  in  fact  be  the  true  rose-tree.  Let  us  enlarge 
our  conception  of  the  universe  until  it  coincides 
with  reality;  in  place  of  the  rose  let  us  put  the 

47 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

mind  of  man;  and  we  have  the  conception  of 
man's  mind  to  which  modern  science  leads  us.  This 
mind  is  merely  a  flowering  of  the  cosmic  plant  or 
tree.  Nothing  is  in  the  flower  that  was  not  first 
outside  it,  and  that  does  not  thrill  through  it  from 
without;  and  just  as  the  mental  flower  is  part  of 
the  cosmic  tree,  so  is  the  cosmic  tree  part  of  the 
mental  flower.  Just  as  the  cosmic  tree  would  call 
the  mind-rose  "My  flower,"  so  would  the  mind- 
rose  call  its  cosmic  source  "My  tree."  Or,  to  put 
the  matter  in  slightly  different  words,  we  may  say 
of  each  individual  human  being  that,  in  a  strictly 
literal  sense,  the  entire  universe  is  his  body,  or 
constitutes  his  extended  self.  He  is  a  nucleated 
point  of  consciousness  in  the  albumen  of  the  cos- 
mic egg. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  if  only  one  man  existed, 
the  extreme  idealist  position — the  position  called 
solipsism — which  even  idealists  dread  because  of 
its  practical  absurdity,  would,  as  interpreted  by 
science,  represent  a  scientific  fact.  The  universe 
would  in  a  sense  be  the  body  of  that  one  man— 
the  outlying  cell  of  which  his  conscious  Ego  was 
the  nucleus.  But  every  one  of  the  other  men, 
who  really  exist  along  with  him,  may  with  equal 
justice  say  the  same  thing  of  himself.  The  same 
universe  is  the  extended  body  of  each;  the  same 
universe  is  the  extended  body  of  all.  Thus  ac- 
cording to  science,  when  science  has  been  rational- 
ized by  philosophy,  the  external  universe  is  for 
each  separate  mind  more  truly  a  part  of  it  than  it 

48 


IDEALISM    ABSORBED    BY    SCIENCE 

is  said  to  be  by  the  boldest  idealist,  and  is  also 
as  completely  independent  of  all  individual  minds 
as  it  is  said  to  be  by  the  most  common-sense 
realist. 

Such,  then,  is  the  manner  in  which  science  re- 
ceives the  attack  made  on  it,  in  the  interests  of 
religion,  by  the  introspective  philosophies.  It  has 
not  repelled  their  arguments,  but  still  less  has  it 
succumbed  to  them.  It  has  made  them  its  own, 
and  applied  them  to  its  own  purposes.  It  has 
taken  over  a  pair  of  unmatched  and  unmanageable 
horses,  and  turning  them  into  one  horse  has  put  it 
between  a  pair  of  shafts.  In  other  words,  the 
philosophy  of  the  religious  apologists,  as  applied 
to  science  in  its  old  materialistic  form,  has,  instead 
of  proving,  as  it  was  meant  to  prove,  a  solvent, 
been  to  it  like  a  solution  of  silica  applied  to  a 
friable  stone.  The  stone  has  drunk  it  in,  and  be- 
come as  hard  as  marble.  All  its  original  veinings 
which,  in  the  interests  of  religion,  it  had  been  the 
intention  of  the  philosophic  apologists  to  obliter- 
ate, remain  what  they  were,  having  only  become 
clearer,  as  the  veins  of  marble  do  when  the  marble 
receives  a  polish.  The  universe  remains  as  rigid 
and  as  unresponsive  as  before — the  process  of  a 
Something  which,  when  seen  to  be  of  the  nature 
of  mind,  is  no  less  mechanical  in  its  behavior  than 
it  appears  to  be  under  the  guise  of  matter.  Man 
remains  as  before,  in  spite  of  his  derived  activity, 
nothing  more  than  a  passing  and  passive  mode  of 
it;  and  the  Whole,  or  God,  if  we  like  to  use  that 

49 


RECONSTRUCTION    OP    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

name,  becomes  more  remote  and  more  hopelessly 
inaccessible  than  ever. 

Since,  then,  the  methods  of  the  clerical  apolo- 
gists, who  attack  science  in  detail  with  a  view  to 
showing  that  the  universe  is  not  self-acting,  but 
requires  a  God  to  aid  it — like  an  old  Newcomen 
steam-engine,  which  required  a  boy  to  regulate  the 
admission  of  steam  to  the  cylinder;  and  since  the 
methods  of  the  philosophic  apologists,  who  try  to 
get  the  better  of  necessity  by  showing  that  it  is  a 
law  which  man  imposes  on  the  universe,  instead 
of  a  law  which  the  universe  imposes  on  man — since 
both  these  methods,  as  at  present  applied,  are 
worthless;  since  the  clerical  method  fails  of  its 
ends,  and  the  philosophic  method  defeats  them— 
it  remains  for  us  to  ask  whether  the  cause  of 
religion  is  desperate,  and  no  hope  remains  of  es- 
cape from  the  scientific  dungeon;  or  whether  a 
recognition  of  the  futility  of  the  methods  we  have 
just  been  considering  may  not  be  the  means  of 
driving  us  somewhat  farther  afield,  and  helping 
us  to  light  upon  others  of  a  more  promising  kind. 

My  aim  is  to  show  that  it  does  thus  point  to 
others — to  two  others  quite  distinct  in  character, 
which  we  will  first  consider  separately,  finally  tak- 
ing them  in  conjunction. 


BOOK    II 


I 

THE  PRACTICAL  WEAKNESS  OF  CURRENT  SCIENCE 

LET  us  start  our  argument  afresh  by  re-examin- 
ing briefly  the  kind  of  conclusion  which  we  are 
now  assuming  that  we  have  established.  This  con- 
clusion, put  into  popular  language,  is  that  science 
does,  as  its  extreme  exponents  claim  that  it  does, 
explain  everything;  or  that  everything  is  poten- 
tially explicable  on  strict  scientific  lines.  Such 
language,  however,  is  only  popular  or  general. 
We  must,  therefore,  consider  more  closely  what, 
when  they  are  thus  used,  is  meant  firstly  by  the 
word  "science,"  and  secondly  by  the  word  "every- 
thing." 

By  "science"  is  meant  the  system  which  pro- 
fesses to  explain  all  existences  as  modes  of  a  single 
substance,  which,  in  itself  unknown  to  us,  is  by 
our  own  experience  apprehended  under  the  guise 
of  matter — just  as  the  movements  of  a  hand,  it- 
self invisible,  might  be  known  and  studied  by  us 
if  it  wore  a  visible  glove.  The  distinctive  doctrine 
of  science,  then,  is  not  that  everything  is  matter, 
but  that  all  individual  things,  the  mind  of  man  in- 
cluded, result  from  a  process  of  which  matter  is, 
s  S3 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

for  us,  the  inseparable  concomitant,  and  which 
develops  them  in  accordance  with  a  single  system 
of  causes,  the  working  of  which  science  studies  by 
means  of  its  material  equivalents. 

By  "everything,"  when  science  is  said  to  explain 
everything,  what  is  generally  meant,  and  what  we 
here  mean  also,  is  man,  not  merely  as  a  living 
organism,  but  also  as  a  being  endowed  with  cer- 
tain appetites,  and  with  a  highly  developed  reason 
by  means  of  which  he  is  able  to  minister  to  them; 
and  among  these  faculties  are  included  the  social 
instincts  which  fit  him,  like  bees  and  other  gre- 
garious animals,  to  struggle  for  what  he  considers 
his  happiness,  in  social  co-operation  with  his  fel- 
lows. But  here  science  stops.  It  does  not,  as  a 
doctrine  of  causes,  discriminate  between  the  kinds 
of  happiness — and  these  are  very  various — which 
different  kinds  of  men,  when  socially  organized, 
seek.  It  gives  us  man  as  he  would  appear  to  some 
detached  spectator,  waiting  to  see  him  do  some- 
thing, and  not  much  caring  what. 

The  conclusion,  then,  which  we  are  assuming 
ourselves  to  have  reached,  is  that,  if  we  take 
science  and  man  in  the  senses  just  indicated, 
science  deduces  man  from  the  general  substance 
of  the  universe,  and  exhibits  him  to  us  as  one  of 
its  passing  phenomena,  in  a  way  so  complete  as 
to  provoke  no  farther  inquiry.  In  what  way, 
then,  is  it  open  to  attack  at  all  ? 

The  possible  inability  of  science  to  explain  every- 
thing first  makes  itself  suspected  by  the  thought- 

54 


SCIENCE    AND    PRACTICAL    LIFE 

ful  and  unbiased  mind,  when,  fixing  our  attention 
on  the  facts  of  concrete  life,  we  realize  that  we  our- 
selves never  do,  for  practical  purposes,  look  upon 
man  in  the  spirit  of  detachment  just  described. 
We  look  upon  him,  and  history  shows  that  he  has 
always  looked  upon  himself,  as  a  being  who  is  not 
only  capable  of  seeking  happiness  somehow,  but  is 
bound  to  seek  for  it  in  some  specific  way,  com- 
pared with  which  its  alternatives  are  inferior,  or 
even  abominable.  This  observation  is  true  in  the 
case  even  of  savages,  but  it  is  specially  applicable 
to  civilized  and  semi-civilized  races,  and  is  illus- 
trated in  a  general  way  by  the  fact  that  all  such 
races,  however  different  their  ideas  of  civilization 
may  be,  regard  civilization  of  some  sort  as  essen- 
tially higher  than  savagery.  Moreover,  when  we 
thus  consider  human  life  in  the  concrete,  we  are 
struck  by  the  further  fact  that,  even  if  the  scien- 
tific explanation  of  man's  nature  be  true,  which 
denies  to  him  any  personal  intercourse  with  any 
trans-human  intelligence,  and  reduces  moral  good- 
ness to  mere  social  efficiency,  yet  the  progressive 
and  civilized  races  from  the  earliest  times  till  now 
have  not  only  never  believed  in,  or  even  suspected, 
its  truth,  but  have  all  held  beliefs  of  a  definitely 
opposite  character.  Of  this  phenomenon  the  ex- 
ample most  significant  for  ourselves  is  supplied  by 
the  history  of  the  great  Christian  civilizations,  and 
consists  of  their  unanimous  belief  in  the  doctrines 
of  Christian  theism.  Modern  civilization  and  the- 
ism have  grown  up  together. 

55 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Now  this  civilization — the  civilization  which  we 
all  inherit — apart  from  its  material  advantages,  to 
which  we  need  not  here  refer,  has  imbued  life  with 
a  number  of  developed  qualities,  moral,  aesthetic, 
and  intellectual,  the  loss  of  which  we  should  all  of 
us  consider  as  equivalent  to  a  return  to  savagery. 
The  question,  then,  which  at  once  suggests  itself  is 
as  follows:  Has  the  association  of  this  civilization 
with  theism  been  merely  an  accident,  or  has  the 
latter  been  an  active  cause  of  the  former?  Do 
these  qualities  of  life,  which  we  are  determined  not 
to  lose,  depend  on  the  beliefs  by  which  their  de- 
velopment has  been  accompanied?  And  if  they 
do  depend  on  them  at  all,  to  what  precise  extent 
do  they  do  so?  Or  in  other  words,  what  change 
would  come  over  the  quality  of  life  if  all  theistic 
belief  were  really  expunged  from  our  conscious- 
ness and  the  scientific  explanation  of  existence 
universally  took  the  place  of  it? 

Here  we  come  to  the  point  at  which  the  apologist 
of  such  belief  should,  for  reasons  of  convenience 
and  of  practical  logic  also,  begin  his  dispute  with 
science  as  to  its  claim  to  explain  everything;  for  if 
this  belief,  to  which  science,  as  at  present  inter- 
preted, is  unable  to  give  harbor,  should  be  found 
on  examination  to  have  no  value  practically — if, 
for  example,  like  the  story  of  Alfred  and  the  cakes, 
it  would  take  with  it,  should  we  dismiss  it,  nothing 
besides  itself,  and  if  the  quality  of  our  lives  would 
not  be  otherwise  altered — then,  quite  apart  from 
the  question  of  whether  it  is  possible  to  defend  it, 

56 


SCIENCE    AND    PRACTICAL    LIFE 

there  would  be  no  reason  for  trying,  or  even  for 
wishing  to  do  so;  and  the  dispute  with  science 
need  not  be  carried  further.  But  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  turns  out  to  be  demonstrable  that  this 
belief  does  really  fulfil  certain  far-reaching  social 
functions,  and  that  what  we  all  look  upon  as  the 
higher  social  activities  would  cease  and  die  of 
atrophy  if  this  belief  were  withdrawn,  the  apologist 
at  once  has  a  basis  of  world-wide  fact  on  which  to 
found  a  presumption  that  this  belief  must  be  true. 
I  speak  for  the  moment  of  nothing  more  than  a 
presumption.  The  strength  and  value  of  the  pre- 
sumption we  will  consider  by-and-by,  but  first  I 
propose  to  show  that  such  an  essential  connection 
between  the  mental  civilization  of  man,  understood 
in  its  widest  sense,  and  the  religious  belief  in  ques- 
tion, whether  latent  or  consciously  completed,  is 
actually  a  fact  which  can  be  demonstrated  by 
careful  analysis  as  surely  as  the  presence  of  phos- 
phorus can  be  demonstrated  in  organic  tissue. 
And  here — in  this  region  of  moral  and  emotional 
chemistry,  where  the  subjects  of  analysis  are  pro- 
vided by  practical  experience  and  history,  by 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  conversance  with 
various  types  of  character,  and  where  art  and  liter- 
ature, as  revealers  of  the  spirit  of  man,  are  the 
assistants — the  apologist  will  find,  when  he  en- 
ters the  lists  against  science,  that  his  position  is 
the  precise  reverse  of  what  it  was  in  his  former 
encounters.  There  the  advantages  were  all  on 
the  side  of  science,  here  the  advantages  will  be 

57 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

all  on  the  side  of  religion,  the  opponents  of  religion 
being  impotent  in  proportion  as  their  science  is 
sound. 

An  analysis  of  the  kind  of  which  I  am  now 
speaking  might  afford  material  for  a  volume.  All 
I  shall  attempt  here  will  be  to  give  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  the  classes  of  fact  which  it  will  deal  with 
and  the  main  results  of  its  application.  We  will, 
however,  in  view  of  certain  possible  objections, 
consider  belief,  as  such,  under  various  aspects 
first. 


II 

BELIEF   AS   A  CAUSAL    FACTOR    IN    LIFE 

ONE  objection  which  deserves  to  be  considered 
and  met  is  an  objection  which,  to  most  people, 
would  never  even  suggest  itself,  and  has  always 
been  practically  disregarded  by  the  scientific 
thinkers  who  urged  it.  It  arises  out  of  the  fact 
that,  according  to  all  scientific  monism,  mind- 
states  and  the  brain-states  that  accompany  them 
are  one  and  the  same  phenomenon.  Hence  it  was 
urged  by  Huxley  and  many  others  that  there 
could  not  possibly  be  any  interaction  between 
them  any  more  than  there  can  be  between  a  red- 
hot  poker  and  its  redness.  They  accordingly  pro- 
pounded the  doctrine  that  consciousness  in  all  its 
forms — belief,  of  course,  being  one  of  them — was 
nothing  but  a  cerebral  by-product,  or,  as  they 
called  it,  an  "epiphenomenon,"  which  registers 
what  the  brain-mind  does,  but  has  no  share  in 
directing  it.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  opinion 
arose.  Since  the  development  of  the  brain,  it  was 
argued,  antecedes  the  development  of  conscious- 
ness, conscious  mind-states  cannot  be  the  cause 
of  the  brain-states  which  form  their  basis.  There 

59 

^  .    •- '  - 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

can,  therefore,  be  one  causal  factor  only — namely, 
the  mechanism  of  the  brain  itself,  which  deter- 
mines the  content  of  consciousness  by  a  previous 
non-conscious  process. 

Now  if  this  were  really  so,  it  would  follow  that 
the  whole  human  race  might  have  been  as  uncon- 
scious as  so  many  Dutch  dolls,  and  yet  human 
history  in  other  respects  would  have  been  just 
what  it  has  been.  The  same  words  would  have 
been  spoken,  the  same  books  would  have  been 
written,  though  no  one  attached  any  meaning  to 
either;  and  battles  would  have  been  fought  and 
nations  risen  and  fallen  without  anybody  know- 
ing what  a  battle  or  a  nation  was.  But  since  this 
conclusion  is  revolting  to  common  -  sense,  Huxley 
and  his  friends  endeavored  to  find  a  refuge  in  de- 
claring that  the  changes  in  consciousness  are  not 
caused  by  the  changes  in  the  brain,  but  are  par- 
allel to  them.  Of  this  doctrine  it  is  enough  here 
to  observe  that,  unless  it  is  meant  to  mask  an 
admission  that  consciousness  is,  in  its  origin  and 
essence,  distinct  from  the  brain  altogether — which 
is  the  very  thing  that  Huxley  and  his  school  deny — 
the  doctrine  of  parallelism  is  merely  a  misleading 
restatement  of  the  old,  unmanageable  doctrine  for 
which  it  is  put  forward  as  a  substitute.  It  is  like 
saying  that  the  redness  of  a  red-hot  poker  is  not 
caused  by,  but  is  parallel  to,  the  condition  of  the 
heated  iron. 

The  true  way  out  of  the  dilemma  is  of  a  very 
simple  kind,  and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  reason  why 

60 


BELIEFS    AS    CAUSAL    FACTORS 

Huxley  and  his  school  missed  it.  There  is,  indeed, 
in  reality,  no  difficulty  at  all.  The  right  way  of 
putting  the  case  is  this.  States  of  consciousness 
cannot,  as  independent  things,  react  on  the  brain 
— so  much  we  admit — any  more  than  the  brain  can 
act  on  them  as  things  independent  of  itself;  but 
tracts  of  the  brain,  when  they  come  to  be  in  such 
a  condition  that  consciousness  emerges  from  them 
like  the  glow  that  emerges  from  hot  iron,  or  the 
flame  that  breaks  from  hay  when  it  has  become 
heated  in  the  stack,  are  different  in  respect  of  their 
own  internal  behavior,  and  the  effects  which  they 
produce  on  the  other  brain-tracts  surrounding 
them,  from  what  they  are  when  in  such  conditions 
that  the  phenomenon  of  consciousness  is  absent; 
and  there  is  thus  specific  interaction  between  con- 
scious and  non  -  conscious  brain  -  tracts,  though 
there  is  none  between  brain  and  mind,  considered 
as  two  separate  entities.  A  dry  stick  set  on  fire 
by  friction  will  scorch  or  warp  others  of  a  similar 
kind  lying  near  it,  but  would  not  do  so  if  it  were 
not  alight  itself.  There  would  be  no  parallelism 
between  the  burning  stick  and  its  burning,  for  the 
flames  would  be  part  of  the  stick's  own  proper 
substance ;  nor  would  there  be  any  interaction  be- 
tween another  stick  warped  or  scorched  by  it  and 
something  else  whose  substance  was  not  similar  to 
its  own.  There  would  merely  be  a  stick  in  one 
condition  acting  on  a  stick  in  another.  Precisely 
the  same  thing  holds  good  of  the  brain  and  con- 
sciousness. There  is  neither  interaction  nor  par- 

61 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

allelism  between  brain -states  and  what  is  not  a 
brain-state;  but  there  is  interaction  between  dif- 
ferent tracts  of  the  brain,  one  of  which  is  incan- 
descent with  consciousness,  while  the  other  or  the 
others  are  not. 

The  fact,  then,  that  states  of  consciousness  may, 
and  that  certain  states  of  consciousness  —  beliefs 
being  among  them — do,  exercise  on  the  brain  or 
mind  a  reactive  and  determining  influence,  is  per- 
fectly consistent  with  the  principles  of  the  most 
rigid  physical  science;  and  the  preposterous  para- 
dox being  removed,  with  which  Huxley  and  his 
friends  had  burdened  themselves,  we  may  now 
proceed  with  our  argument  in  the  full  and  com- 
fortable assurance  that,  as  to  the  causal  efficiency 
of  belief,  science  and  common-sense  are  at  one. 

It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that,  though 
certain  states  of  consciousness,  such  as  states  of 
belief,  are  active  and  causal  forces,  there  are  many 
states  of  consciousness  which  are  really  mere  pas- 
sive products  or  conscious  registers  of  processes 
themselves  non  -  conscious.  And  it  will  help  us 
to  understand  the  part  which  conscious  belief 
plays,  if  we  take  a  simple  case  of  conscious  con- 
duct and  feeling  and  compare  what  they  are 
when  mere  passive  by-products  of  the  organism 
with  what  they  are  when  conscious  belief  deter- 
mines them. 

Let  us  take  that  complex  state  called  high 
animal  spirits.  It  is  one  which 'is  specially  in- 
structive, because  animals — kittens  and  lambs,  for 

62 


BELIEFS  AS  CAUSAL  FACTORS 

instance,  when  they  jump  and  play  —  experience 
it  no  less  than  men.  Now,  high  spirits,  in  the 
case  of  a  lamb  or  kitten,  are  obviously  nothing 
more  than  a  consciousness  of  organic  activities, 
the  effects  of  which  consciousness  feels,  but  which 
it  does  nothing  to  regulate;  and  men  have  their 
animal  spirits,  just  as  lambs  and  kittens  have,  the 
exhilaration  for  them,  too,  being  the  product  of 
organic  conditions,  of  the  very  nature  of  which 
nine  of  them  out  of  ten  know  nothing.  Let  us 
now  compare  this  kind  of  good  spirits  with  an- 
other kind,  from  which,  in  its  outer  signs,  it  is 
often  hardly  distinguishable.  A  boy  comes  down 
to  breakfast,  absent,  listless,  and  moody,  having 
spent  the  night  in  wondering  whether  somebody 
loves  him  still.  On  the  breakfast-table  he  finds 
awaiting  him  a  letter  from  the  lady  herself,  which 
assures  him  that  her  sentiments  are  still  as  tender 
as  ever.  A  sudden  change  comes  over  his  whole 
system.  The  spirits  of  the  young  Werther  be- 
come those  of  a  frisking  lamb,  except  for  the  one 
fact  that  their  origin  is  wholly  different.  It  is 
not  an  unconscious  process;  it  is  a  definite  belief 
about  a  lady  —  often  more  than  twice  his  age— 
which,  itself  an  effect  of  causes  external  to  the 
boy,  is  in  its  turn  the  cause  of  a  further  effect 
within  him. 

Rudimentary  examples  such  as  this  will  serve 
to  indicate  one  thing  —  that  though  our  feelings 
and  actions  are,  in  their  simplest  forms,  largely 
independent  of  any  conscious  belief,  yet  in  actual 

63 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

life  they  are  elaborated  into  experiences  of  a  new 
order  by  conscious  beliefs  reacting  on  this  quasi- 
passive  material.  Nor  is  this  all.  When  our  in- 
quiry has  been  pursued  further  we  shall  see  that 
our  states  of  feeling  become  deeper,  richer,  ampler, 
and  more  specifically  human,  in  exact  proportion 
as  beliefs  play  a  part  in  determining  them. 

Here,  however,  a  further  point  will,  perhaps, 
have  suggested  itself  to  the  reader,  which  also  re- 
quires to  be  dealt  with  before  we  proceed  further. 
We  have  been  considering  belief  as  equivalent  to 
a  state  of  consciousness,  but  it  need  not  always  be 
so;  and  in  the  inquiry  on  which  we  shall  presently 
enter,  it  will  be  necessary  to  remember  this.  Any 
belief  may  exist  in  three  forms,  no  one  of  which 
can  be  called  directly  conscious. 

It  may  exist  as  a  supposition  which  is  unnoticed 
because  it  is  instinctively  ignored.  Thus  a  man 
may,  so  far  as  his  consciousness  is  concerned, 
believe  himself  to  be  the  disinterested  lover  of 
a  woman  who  is  a  reputed  heiress.  That  the 
thought  of  her  money  had  anything  to  do  with 
his  devotion,  he  would  himself  strenuously  deny; 
but  if  he  should  learn  from  her  lawyer  that  she 
would  forfeit  her  fortune  on  her  marriage,  and 
found  his  passion  declining  in  consequence  to  the 
tepidity  of  a  platonic  friendliness,  which  is  gen- 
erally the  precursor  of  neglect,  the  reality  and  the 
efficacy  of  his  belief  in  the  lady's  pecuniary  value, 
would  be  shown  by  the  effects  which  followed  when 
this  belief  was  destroyed. 

64 


BELIEFS  AS  CAUSAL  FACTORS 

Belief,  again,  may  exist  in  the  form  of  an  as- 
sumption which  is  never  consciously  recognized, 
because  it  has  never  been  consciously  questioned. 
Thus  a  man  may  esteem  and  trust  a  friend  with- 
out ever  having  said  to  himself  that  the  friend  is 
strictly  honest;  but  that  he  has  believed  him  to 
be  honest,  and  that  his  friendship  depends  on  this 
belief,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  his  esteem  and  his 
trust  would  vanish  should  he  suddenly  discover 
that  his  friend  was  a  professional  pickpocket. 
How  little  this  fact,  seemingly  so  simple,  is  ap- 
preciated, is  shown  in  a  very  interesting,  though 
slight  essay  on  "Religion,"  by  Mr.  G.  L.  Dickin- 
son, who  endeavors  to  exhibit  genuine  religious 
faith  as  perfectly  compatible  with  a  condition  of 
intellectual  agnosticism.  Its  only  connection  with 
a  belief  in  God  consists,  he  says,  in  the  fact  that 
"a  certain  distress"  results  when  the  existence 
of  God  is  denied;  which  distress,  he  continues, 
really  results  from  the  destruction  of  "  a  volitional 
assumption  that  things,  whatever  appearances 
may  suggest,  are  really  'worth  while."  This  is 
merely  a  confession,  little  as  the  writer  perceives 
it,  that  the  kind  of  faith  in  question  rests  on  a 
secret  belief,  previously  unrecognized  because  not 
previously  assailed,  that  things  are  really  "worth 
while"  because  a  trustworthy  God  makes  them  so. 

Finally,  belief  may  exist  in  a  form  less  obvious 
still.  It  may  exist  not  as  an  assumption,  uncon- 
scious because  not  questioned,  but  as  an  implica- 
tion which  is  latent  in  a  belief  held  consciously, 

65 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

though  its  presence  is  unsuspected  because  it  has 
never  been  logically  developed.  Of  beliefs  thus 
held  by  unconscious  logical  implication,  the  theo- 
rems of  Euclid  afford  familiar  examples.  A  man 
may  consciously  believe  in  the  existence  of  an  equi- 
lateral triangle,  and  may  base  a  course  of  conduct 
on  a  knowledge  that  its  angles  are  equal,  but  may 
yet  be  quite  unaware  that  these  angles  equal  two 
right  angles.  It  only  needs,  however,  that  this 
latter  fact  should  be  demonstrated,  and  he  will 
see  that  his  mind  by  implication  has  contained  a 
belief  in  it  from  the  first.  A  further  example  will 
be  yielded  by  the  kind  of  religious  faith  of  which 
Mr.  Dickinson  gives  us  so  incomplete  an  analysis. 
Not  only  does  this  comprise  an  assumption  that 
a  God  exists,  which,  as  soon  as  attention  is  called 
to  it,  is  clear  to  us  in  a  general  way;  but  this  as- 
sumption itself,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  note 
presently,  will  be  found  to  contain  by  implication 
a  number  of  detailed  propositions  which  may  al- 
together escape  us,  till  accurate  thought  shows  us 
that  our  general  conception  necessitates  them,  and 
actually  falls  to  pieces  if  these  propositions  are 
denied. 

Thus,  when  we  talk  of  religious  belief  as  affect- 
ing practical  life,  though  conscious  belief  will  be 
what  we  primarily  have  in  view,  we  shall  also  in- 
clude in  this  beliefs  which  are  unconscious,  either 
because  they  are  ignored  or  because  they  are  in- 
stinctively assumed,  or  because  they  are  implica- 
tions which  have  not  been  logically  developed. 

66 


BELIEFS  AS  CAUSAL  FACTORS 

Having  now  considered  belief  under  its  most 
general  aspects,  as  a  psycho  -  mechanical  activity 
by  which  the  data  of  consciousness  are,  like  a  raw 
material,  woven  into  finished  products,  we  will  turn 
our  attention  to  the  three  beliefs  in  particular — the 
beliefs  of  the  theist  in  God,  freedom,  and  immor- 
tality— which  science,  understood  in  the  sense  that 
was  just  now  indicated,  not  only  makes,  but  boasts 
of  making,  impossible. 


Ill 


MENTAL    CIVILIZATION    AND    THE    THREE 
BELIEFS    OF    THEISM 

OUR  aim,  let  me  repeat,  is  to  show  that  these 
three  beliefs,  which  make  up  what  we  are  here 
calling  religion,  have  a  prima-facie  justification  in 
their  effects  on  practical  life — that  life,  in  short, 
in  those  forms  which  civilized  men  value,  would 
be  utterly  unable  to  flourish  or  persist  without 
them.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that,  in  its  essence, 
the  argument  is  not  new;  but,  as  commonly  used 
by  apologists — by  Christian  apologists  in  particular 
— it  is,  besides  being  obscured  by  its  utter  want 
of  system,  made  worthless  for  controversial  pur- 
poses by  an  artificial  narrowing  of  its  application, 
which  prevents  it  from  reaching  the  sympathies 
of  those  who  are  most  in  need  of  it.  When  the 
ordinary  apologist — the  Christian  apologist  in  par- 
ticular— endeavors  to  establish  the  truth  of  a  be- 
lief in  God  by  any  reference  to  its  effects  on  our 
moral  and  mental  civilization,  his  first  temptation 
is  to  assume  that  God,  if  He  exists  at  all,  must  pos- 
sess the  specific  character  which  the  apologist's 
own  church  or  sect,  whatever  this  may  be,  imputes 

68 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

to  Him — the  character  imputed  to  Him  by  Calvin, 
by  President  Kruger,  by  the  pope,  or  by  the  au- 
thor of  The  Christian  Year.  His  second  temptation 
will  be,  in  dealing  with  human  civilization,  to  con- 
fine, or  at  any  rate  to  give  most  of  his  attention  to, 
what  in  its  narrowest  sense  is  called  the  religious 
life.  He  ought,  if  his  work  is  to  have  any  general 
value,  to  put,  at  the  beginning  of  his  argument, 
both  temptations  away  from  him.  He  should 
make  his  conception  of  God  and  civilized  life  as 
wide  as  he  can,  and  as  non-Christian  as  he  can, 
reserving  his  Christian  arguments  for  a  much  later 
stage  of  his  proceedings,  at  which,  whatever  their 
value,  they  will  be  in  their  right  place.  Thus,  in 
dealing  with  God,  he  should  carefully  refrain  at 
starting,  from  attributing  to  Him  any  more  specific 
qualities  than  a  supreme  personality  which  con- 
tains, in  responsive  perfection,  everything  that 
any  man  looks  upon  as  beautiful,  or  sublime,  or 
good,  or  satisfying  to  his  higher  nature.  Similar- 
ly, in  dealing  with  civilization,  he  should  at  first 
refrain  from  insisting  on  any  of  those  moods  or 
exercises  which  Christians  associate  with  the  life 
specifically  called  religious,  and  confine  himself  to 
those  interests,  principles,  affections,  and  aesthetic 
enjoyments,  which  are  commonly  supposed  to  be 
the  rivals  rather  than  the  dependents  of  religion, 
but  are  generally  recognized  as  constituents  of  ad- 
vanced culture  and  refinement. 

This  procedure  is  one  with  which  no  Christian 
should  quarrel  when  he  reflects  on  what  the  main 

6  69 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

object  of  the  apologist  now  is.  It  is  partly,  indeed, 
to  fortify  the  weak  who  agree  with  him  in  his 
Christianity  already;  but  it  is  mainly  to  convince 
those  who  at  present  can  hardly  be  even  theists, 
and  for  many  of  whom  the  life  of  worship  has  no 
natural  fascination.  If,  then,  at  starting,  he  will 
have  no  God  at  all  but  a  Jehovah,  or  a  "  wrathful 
Lamb,"  the  God  of  the  Shorter  Catechism,  or  the 
burning  Heart  which  gave  itself  to  the  Blessed 
Margaret  Mary,  he  will  alienate  the  larger  part  of 
his  possible  listeners  at  starting;  whereas,  if  he 
begins  with  a  God  whose  goodness  is  indetermi- 
nate, and  whom  each  man  may  interpret  in  terms 
of  his  own  sympathies,  his  argument  will  lose 
nothing  for  those  who  are  almost  Christians  al- 
ready, and  who  will  be  quite  able  to  Christianize 
its  general  tendency  for  themselves;  and  it  will  at 
once  touch  the  majority,  who  otherwise  would  not 
listen  to  it.  In  the  same  way,  if,  in  dealing  with 
civilization,  he  treats  the  religious  life  as  its  most 
important  element,  and  the  loss  of  it  as  the  prin- 
cipal injury  which  the  triumph  of  unbelief  would 
inflict  on  us,  many  of  those  whom  he  is  most  con- 
cerned to  reach  would  feel  that  if  this  was  all 
it  did  not  very  much  matter — that  if  the  religious 
life,  with  its  church-goings  and  its  sermons,  went 
this  would  on  the  whole  be  rather  a  good  thing. 
But  let  the  apologist  cast  his  nets  wider,  and  show 
that  not  the  religious  life  only,  but  all  the  higher 
form  of  irreligious  life  also,  would  suffer  equally 
were  the  beliefs  in  question  withdrawn ;  and  he  and 

70 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

all  whom  he  may  address  will  have  a  common 
ground  to  stand  upon.  He  will  have  enlisted  as 
witnesses  to  the  practical  value  of  these  beliefs, 
not  merely  the  piety  of  a  small  communion  of 
saints,  but  also  the  common-sense  and  culture  of 
the  civilized  world  at  large. 

The  doctrines  of  religion,  then,  and  the  most 
valuable  elements  of  civilization  being  thus  under- 
stood in  the  widest  possible  way,  the  task  before 
us  will  be  to  take  these  doctrines  separately,  and 
trace  the  more  important  effects  on  feeling,  con- 
duct, and  culture,  of  a  practical  belief  that  each  of 
these  doctrines  is  true. 

Of  these  beliefs  we  shall  find  that  two  only— 
namely,  the  belief  in  God  and  the  belief  in  human 
freedom — require  to  be  treated  with  any  great 
minuteness.  The  belief  in  immortality  is  simpler 
in  its  effects  than  the  others;  the  scientific  diffi- 
culties involved  in  a  reasonable  assent  to  it  are 
the  same  as  those  involved  in  an  assent  to  the 
belief  in  freedom;  and  a  short  chapter  devoted  to 
it,  when  the  two  others  have  been  discussed,  will 
be  sufficient.  Of  these  others,  it  will  be  well  to 
deal  with  the  belief  in  freedom  first,  as  this  is  con- 
nected most  closely  with  our  ordinary  secular  ex- 
periences. 


IV 

MENTAL   CIVILIZATION   AND   THE   BELIEF   IN 
HUMAN    FREEDOM 

IT  was  observed  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
Christian  apologists  generally,  when  defending  re- 
ligious belief  by  reference  to  its  practical  conse- 
quences, weaken  their  argument  by  unduly  limit- 
ing the  application  of  it.  It  must  here  be  observed 
that,  when  dealing  with  the  belief  in  freedom,  they 
commit  the  opposite  blunder  of  making  its  appli- 
cation too  wide ;  and  we  must  rid  ourselves,  before 
going  further,  of  an  error  which  they  have  thus 
popularized. 

This  error  consists  of  the  well-known  contention 
that  unless  we  are  free  agents,  legal  punishments 
are  unjust  and  all  moral  judgments  meaningless; 
while  unless  we  believe  in  our  own  freedom  our- 
selves, no  self-restraint  of  any  kind  will  be  possible. 
Such  a  contention  as  it  stands  is  altogether  untrue. 
Legal  punishments  arise  from  social  necessities. 
So  does  a  large  class  of  moral  judgments  and  self- 
restraints.  We  should  be  no  more  inclined  to  tol- 
erate the  murderer,  the  thief,  the  habitual  cheat 
or  liar,  on  the  ground  that  their  faults  were  in- 

72 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

grained  in  their  very  natures,  than  the  captain 
of  a  cricket  eleven  would  be  to  tolerate  an  incom- 
petent bowler,  on  the  ground  that  the  man  bowled 
badly  because  he  never  could  bowl  better.  Our 
punishments,  our  dislikes,  our  judgments,  would 
have  this  very  obvious  meaning — that  the  objects 
of  them  were  persons  incapable  of  playing  the 
social  game,  and  could  not,  for  that  reason,  be 
allowed  to  take  any  part  in  it,  but  would  have  to 
be  shunned,  shut  up,  or  perhaps  on  occasion  ex- 
terminated; while,  so  far  as  the  question  of  self- 
restraint  is  concerned,  those  who  did  not  wish  to 
be  thus  expelled  from  the  playground  would  have 
the  strongest  motives  for  restraining,  and  also  for 
exerting,  themselves  to  such  a  degree  as  would 
secure  their  right  to  remain  on  it. 

For  the  distinctive  effects  of  a  belief  in  human 
freedom  the  analyst  will  have  to  look  very  much 
deeper  than  the  legal  or  private  apportionment  of 
penalties,  disapprovals,  or  rewards,  to  conduct 
judged  by  its  mere  sociological  consequences.  The 
life-process  of  men  in  society  is  divisible  into  two 
parts,  of  which  one  consists  of  the  judgments, 
regulations,  and  actions  necessary  for  the  attain- 
ment and  maintenance  of  any  kind  of  life  that 
is  desired  —  this  being  so  far  an  indeterminate 
quantity;  while  the  second  consists  of  this  quan- 
tity itself,  as  determined  by  the  tastes  and  ideals 
of  the  men  and  women  concerned.  The  first  is 
comparable  to  the  co-operation  between  architect, 
masons,  and  carpenters,  no  matter  what  be  the 

73 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

character  of  the  building  which  they  are  co-oper- 
ating to  construct.  The  second  is  comparable  to 
the  tastes,  desires,  and  aims  which  have  deter- 
mined whether  the  building  in  question  shall  be 
a  college,  a  cathedral,  or  a  gaming-hell.  This  sec- 
ond part  does  not  affect  the  social  mechanism  of 
the  former,  but  alters  the  purposes  for  which  that 
mechanism  is  used;  and  it  is  only  according  to  the 
purposes  for  which  it  is  used  that  the  mechanism 
possesses  for  man  any  appreciable  value. 

Now  between  these  two  parts  into  which  the 
practical  life-process  is  divisible,  there  exists  this 
broad  difference.  In  the  first — namely,  that  which 
consists  of  mere  sociological  co-operation,  what 
men  are,  is  estimated  solely  with  reference  to  what 
they  do.  In  the  second — namely,  that  which  com- 
prises all  the  higher  drama  of  life,  what  they  do, 
is  estimated  as  a  manifestation  of  what  they  are. 
Thus,  honesty  in  an  administrator  of  public  funds 
is  sociologically  valuable  as  a  guarantee  that  the 
funds  will  be  honestly  administered;  but  among 
his  friends,  the  man's  official  integrity  is  valued 
mainly  as  a  sign  that  he  is  at  heart  honest.  In  the 
one  case,  each  person  is  an  official  whose  value 
consists  in  his  performances;  in  the  other,  his  per- 
formances are  valuable  because  they  are  expres- 
sions of  his  personality.  Personality,  in  fact,  is 
the  primary  conception  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
all  super-sociological  life,  or  the  kind  of  life  which 
is  susceptible  of  moral  and  mental  civilization; 
and  the  importance  of  the  belief  in  freedom  con- 

74 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

sists  in  this,  that  the  belief  in  freedom  is  at  the 
root  of  our  entire  conception  of  personality. 

Our  analysis  of  our  own  conceptions  is  apt  to 
be  so  imperfect  that  the  fact  just  stated  is  but 
very  partially  understood.  When  most  people 
talk  of  believing  in  moral  freedom,  they  mean  by 
freedom  a  power  which  exhausts  itself  in  acts  of 
choice  between  a  series  of  alternative  courses ;  but, 
important  though  such  choice,  as  a  function  of 
freedom  is,  the  root  idea  of  freedom  lies  deeper 
still.  It  consists  in  the  idea,  not  that  a  man  is, 
as  a  personality,  the  first  and  the  sole  cause  of 
his  choice  between  alternative  courses,  but  that 
he  is,  in  a  true,  even  if  in  a  qualified  sense,  the 
first  cause  of  what  he  does,  or  feels,  or  is,  whether 
this  involves  an  act  of  choice,  or  consists  of  an 
unimpeded  impulse.  Freedom  of  choice  between 
alternatives  is  the  consequence  of  this  primary 
faculty.  It  is  the  form  in  which  the  faculty  is 
most  noticeably  manifested;  but  it  is  not  the 
primary  faculty  of  personal  freedom  itself.  That 
this  faculty  of  the  self  -  origination  of  impulse  is 
really  what  we  mean  by  freedom,  and  what  we 
mean  by  personality  also,  is  shown  by  the  only 
supposition  which  is  open  to  us,  if  we  reject  this. 
If  a  man  is  not  in  any  degree,  be  this  never  so 
limited,  the  first  cause  or  originator  of  his  own 
actions  or  impulses,  he  must  be  the  mere  trans- 
mitter or  quotient  of  forces  external  to  his  con- 
scious self,  like  a  man  pushed  against  another  by 
the  pressure  of  a  crowd  behind  him.  In  other 

75 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

words,  he  would  have  no  true  self — no  true  per- 
sonality at  all. 

Having,  then,  seen  what  the  belief  in  freedom 
means,  let  us  consider  the  effects  of  it  as  embodied 
in  actual  life.  We  will  take  first  three  particular 
examples,  and  will  then  consider  the  matter  in  a 
more  general  and  comprehensive  way.  The  par- 
ticular examples  shall  consist  of  three  phenomena 
which  have  a  high  and  typical  importance  in  the 
life  of  civilized  man.  One  shall  be  the  love  of 
the  sexes;  another  shall  be  heroism  in  the  face 
of  physical  danger;  the  third  shall  be  forgiveness 
of  injuries,  or  that  general  charity  of  judgment 
which  is  forgiveness  in  a  diluted  form. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  love  of  lovers,  as  civil- 
ized human  beings  value  it;  the  raw  material  of 
the  emotion  is  a  simple  sexual  appetency,  which 
is,  like  the  high  spirits  of  kittens  or  frisking  lambs, 
independent  of  any  belief,  and  lies  below  its  level. 
It  is  an  affection  of  the  non-conscious  part  of  the 
organisms  of  those  concerned,  which  is  thrust  into 
the  field  of  their  consciousness,  like  the  prompt- 
ings of  thirst  or  hunger;  and  men  who  are  familiar 
with  this  crude  organic  appetency,  and  also  with 
the  civilized  love  which  is  what  we  have  here  in 
view,  will  be  helped  in  understanding  the  dis- 
tinguishing characteristics  of  the  latter  by  com- 
paring the  two  and  considering  how  they  differ. 
The  essence  of  the  difference  will  be  found  to  con- 
sist in  this — that,  whereas  the  organic  appetency 
is  a  desire  for  the  woman's  person,  the  developed 

76 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

passion  of  love  is  a  desire  for  her  personality,  and, 
being  a  desire  for  it,  implies  a  belief  concerning  it. 

How,  then,  is  the  personality  which  is  thus  be- 
lieved in  conceived?  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that 
the  primary  characteristic  imputed  to  it  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  has  just  now  been  described.  It 
is  a  power  in  the  personality  itself  of  originating 
its  own  impulses,  so  that  when  a  woman  gives  her 
heart  to  her  lover,  it  is  she  herself  who  gives  it, 
and  not  a  long  train  of  causes  combining  to  direct 
on  him  a  force  with  which  her  organism  is  already 
charged,  as  a  hand  might,  directing  water  which  is 
spurted  through  a  movable  nozzle,  and  itself  owes 
its  impetus  to  some  distant  pump  or  reservoir. 
That  such  is  the  case  will  be  obvious  when  we 
consider  the  primary  demand  which,  in  all  the 
higher  kinds  of  love,  the  lover  makes  of  the  be- 
loved— the  demand,  namely,  that  she  shall  be  true 
and  faithful.  The  simplest  form  which  this  de- 
mand can  take  is  the  prayer  which  the  lover,  on 
occasion,  is  sure  to  address  to  his  mistress,  that 
she  will,  when  he  is  absent,  remember  him,  or  an 
expression  of  his  belief  that  she  is  perfectly  sure 
to  do  so.  Now  what  does  this  belief  mean  ?  Does 
it  mean  that,  having  taken  into  account  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  the  loved  one  dwells,  and  the 
people  she  is  likely  to  meet,  he  thinks  it  improb- 
able that  she  will  encounter  any  other  men  by 
whom  her  amative  instincts  will  be  irritated  more 
strongly  than  they  are  by  him  ?  On  the  contrary, 
it  means  that,  whatever  temptations  might  beset 

77 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

her,  mental  or  physical,  on  the  part  of  would-be 
rivals,  there  is  some  principle  of  fidelity  in  herself 
which  makes  her  immune  to  all.  In  what,  then, 
does  he  suppose  this  principle  of  fidelity  to  reside  ? 
Does  it  depend  on  the  fact  that,  according  to  his 
estimate  of  probabilities,  her  memory-cells  are  as 
likely  to  retain  a  flattering  and  desirable  image 
of  him  as  her  body  generally  is  to  retain  its 
health,  and  that  the  chances  are  against  any  ac- 
cident, such  as  a  violent  blow  on  the  head,  inflict- 
ing on  her  any  cerebral  injury  by  which  this  image 
would  be  expunged?  On  the  contrary,  his  belief, 
if  analyzed,  would  be  found  to  mean  that,  even 
should  such  an  accident  occur,  a  self  would  survive 
in  spite  of  it  which  was  true  to  his  memory  still, 
and  which,  though  obscured  by  the  misfortune, 
was  not  either  sullied  or  destroyed  by  it.  The 
lover's  creed  is  lago's.  "It  is  in  ourselves  that 
we  are  thus  and  thus.  Our  organisms  are  the 
gardens  to  which  our  wills  are  gardeners." 

That  this  belief  plays  the  part  which  is  here 
assigned  to  it  is  attested  not  only  by  the  private 
experiences  of  most  civilized  men,  but  also  by 
all  the  great  poetry  in  which  the  passion  of  love 
is  dealt  with.  Such  poetry  is,  in  Shakespeare's 
words,  a  mirror  held  up  to  nature;  and  it  is  only 
recognized  as  great  because  it  reflects  faithfully. 
I  will  not  indulge  in  quotations,  for  most  readers 
of  cultivation  can  supply  them  from  their  own 
memories.  I  will  content  myself  with  referring 
to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  love-poems  of  an- 

78 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

tiquity  —  namely,  that  which  Catullus  wrote  on 
the  degradation  of  Lesbia,  the  "Lesbia  ilia"  who 
was  loved  by  him  more  than  "his  eyes  and  life," 
and  who  sank  at  last  to  the  embraces  of  "  the  mag- 
nanimous nephews  of  Remus."  Here  the  passion- 
ate belief  in  the  tragic  freedom  of  personality  is 
expressed  in  relation  to  man's  love  for  woman,  as 
emphatically  as  Augustine  or  any  other  saint  could 
have  expressed  it  with  regard  to  that  greater  mys- 
tery, the  love  of  man  for  God;  and  from  Catullus 
to  Dante,  from  Dante  to  Shakespeare  and  Goethe, 
all  the  great  poets  of  the  world  tender  the  same 
evidence;  and  the  great  poets,  let  me  repeat,  are 
only  great  because  they  utter  what  men  in  general, 
though  they  cannot  utter  it,  feel. 

The  instinctive  praise  bestowed  on  the  ideal 
hero,  or  even  on  any  one  who  approaches  the 
hero's  character  is  another  typical  element  in  the 
texture  of  our  civilized  judgments ;  and  here  again 
the  same  story  repeats  itself.  A  man  who,  for 
some  great  end,  undergoes  prolonged  peril,  and 
deliberately  wills  to  die  for  the  sake  of  that  end, 
if  necessary,  is  no  doubt  valued  partly  as  a  good 
public  servant,  just  as  a  good  rifle  is,  which  re- 
ceives its  own  praise  also;  but  a  comparison  be- 
tween our  admiration  of  the  man,  and  our  judicial 
approbation  of  the  mechanism,  will  show  us  what 
the  essential  element  in  our  admiration  of  heroism 
is.  It  is  admiration  of  conduct  which  originates 
in  the  man's  conscious  self,  which  he  has  delib- 
erately chosen  when  he  might  just  as  well  have 

79 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

chosen  its  opposite,  and  which  is  not  imposed  on 
him  by  conditions^  whether  within  his  organism 
or  outside  it,  as  much  external  to  the  conscious 
choice  itself  as  the  talents  of  a  gun-maker  are  to 
the  gun  made  by  him. 

A  case  even  more  interesting  is  to  be  found  in 
the  act  of  forgiveness;  for  forgiveness  is  an  act 
which,  in  the  absence  of  a  belief  in  freedom,  not 
only  would  lose  its  meaning,  but  could  not  take 
place  at  all.  To  forgive  an  injury  implies  that, 
bad  as  the  offence  may  have  been,  the  man  who 
committed  it  was  better  than  his  own  act,  and  was 
for  this  reason  not  constrained  to  commit  it;  and 
while  it  is  only  the  assumption  of  a  better  potential 
self  in  him  that  makes  him  a  subject  to  whom 
moral  blame  is  applicable,  it  is  only  for  the  sake 
of  this  self  that  forgiveness  can  abstain  from 
blaming.  The  believer  in  freedom  says  to  the 
offending  party,  "I  forgive  you  for  the  offence  of 
not  having  done  your  best."  The  determinist 
says,  "  I  neither  forgive  nor  blame  you ;  for  although 
you  have  done  your  worst,  your  worst  was  your 
best  also." 

And  now  let  us  pass  from  these  particular  cases, 
to  conduct  and  character  taken  in  a  more  general 
way.  Here  again  we  shall  be  helped  in  reaching 
the  truth  by  considering  how  life  is  reflected  in 
great  literature;  and  literature  will  show  us  that 
three-fourths  of  life,  as  enjoyed  by  us,  and  as 
stimulating  our  interests,  depends  on  the  personal 
judgments  which  we  form  of  ourselves  and  of  one 

80 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

another.  The  poems  of  Homer  and  Dante,  the 
dramas  of  Sophocles  and  Shakespeare,  would  be 
nothing  if  we  abstracted  the  element  of  personal 
judgments  from  them.  Achilles,  Thersites,  Hec- 
tor, Helen,  Agamemnon,  Clytemnestra,  Antigone, 
Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Othello,  and  all  the  figures  that 
people  Dante's  Hell  and  Heaven  —  these,  as  sub- 
mitted to  our  judgment,  are  the  substance  of  the 
poems  that  deal  with  them ;  and  if  we  did  not  sup- 
pose them  free  our  judgments  would  have  no 
meaning.  Some  of  them  no  doubt  are  exhibited 
in  the  chains  of  Fate ;  but  they  interest  us  as  born 
to  freedom,  and  not  naturally  slaves,  and  they 
pass  before  us  like  kings  in  a  Roman  triumph. 
Once  let  us  suppose  these  characters  to  be  mere 
puppets  of  heredity  and  circumstance,  and  they 
and  the  works  that  deal  with  them  lose  all  intel- 
ligible content,  and  we  find  ourselves  confused 
and  wearied  with  the  fury  of  an  idiot's  tale. 

From  great  imaginative  poetry  let  us  turn  to 
great  satire;  and  the  same  fact  will  be  illustrated 
in  an  even  plainer  way.  We  will  take,  for  instance. 
Pope's  description  of  Addison,  in  which  personal 
satire  has  reached  perhaps  its  highest  stage  of 
perfection : 

"Peace  to  all  such:  but  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  and  fair  fame  inspires: 
Should  such  a  one,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne, 
View  him  with  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise, 
81 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And  without  sneering  teach  the  rest  to  sneer, 
Like  Cato  give  his  little  senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause, 
While  wits  and  templars  every  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise. 

Who  must  not  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be? 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he?" 

The  whole  point  of  this  passage,  whose  every 
phrase  has  become  a  proverb,  is  revealed  in  the 
closing  question.  Why  should  we  weep  if  Atticus 
is  such  a  man  as  this?  Because  it  was  open  to 
Atticus  to  have  been  a  man  of  a  very  different 
kind.  Were  it  not  for  this  supposition,  the  satire 
would  have  no  more  force  in  it,  than  it  would  have 
were  it  made  up  of  statements  that  Atticus  was 
not  so  tall  as  some  men,  or  not  so  strong,  or  that 
he  had  not  a  good  digestion. 

Or  again,  let  us  turn  to  history,  and  take  some 
conspicuous  quality,  the  presence  or  absence  of 
which  in  such  and  such  public  characters  forms 
a  constant  theme  of  the  historian.  Let  us  take 
constancy  to  principles  on  account  of  their  assumed 
truth.  Now  this  quality,  when  possessed  by  a 
public  man,  although  it  is  often  useful,  is  just  as 
likely  to  be  mischievous;  and  yet  all  historians 
and  biographers  unite  in  praising  a  statesman  who, 
regardless  of  his  own  interests,  has  been  constant 
even  to  principles  that  were  false,  if  he  honestly 
held  them  to  be  true ;  while  if  a  partisan  is  anxious 

82 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

to  blacken  the  character  of  an  opponent,  the  most 
damaging  charge  he  can  bring  against  him  is,  in 
the  opinion  of  everybody,  the  charge  of  abandon- 
ing principles  of  whose  truth  he  is  still  convinced. 
Here  once  more  it  is  obvious  that  all  this  praising 
and  blaming  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  the 
person  praised  or  blamed  is  the  originator  of  his  own 
actions,  and  not  a  mere  transmitter  of  forces.  Un- 
less he  is  conceived  of  thus,  the  praise  or  blame 
launched  at  him  on  account  of  his  consistency  or 
of  his  inconsistency  has  no  target  which  it  can  hit, 
but  passes  through  the  man's  constitution,  and 
spends  itself  on  the  universe  generally,  losing  in 
doing  so  the  whole  of  its  original  character. 

A  quality  such  as  this,  of  consistency  in  public 
life,  is  here  specially  instructive,  because  it  brings 
to  bear  on  our  problem  the  judgment  of  mankind 
at  large,  in  one  of  its  most  elaborate  and  deliber- 
ately explicit  forms.  And  to  this  quality  we  might 
add  any  number  of  others,  on  ascribing  or  denying 
which  to  the  objects  of  their  likes  or  dislikes  histo- 
rians and  biographers  expend  a  large  part  of  their 
energies. 

Let  us  think  of  some  of  the  questions  which 
such  writers  debate,  and  in  which  the  ordinary 
reader  takes  often  so  keen  an  interest.  Did  Gib- 
bon exaggerate  the  virtues  of  the  apostate  Julian? 
Did  Froude  exaggerate  those  of  his  hero  Henry? 
Was  Bacon's  philosophic  method  original?  Was 
Cromwell's  principal  object  his  own  glory,  or  God's  ? 
Were  Chatham's  "incoherences  and  fierce  ambi- 

83 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

tions"  really  atoned  for,  as  one  of  his  biographers 
asserts,  "by  his  grand  nature  and  his  heroic 
ideals?"  All  such  questions  as  these  which,  for 
historians  and  the  world  generally,  form  so  large 
a  part  of  the  interest  with  which  history  inspires 
them,  would  be  absolutely  meaningless  if  it  were 
not  for  the  inveterate  belief  that  a  man's  signifi- 
cance for  men  resides  primarily  in  what  he  makes 
of  himself,  not  in  what  he  has  been  made  by  an 
organism  derived  from  his  parents,  and  the  various 
external  stimuli  to  which  it  has  automatically  re- 
sponded. If  man  is  no  more  than  a  creature  of 
birth  and  circumstances,  what  is  the  meaning  of 
debating  whether  the  grandeur  of  Pitt's  nature 
did  or  did  not  atone  for  his  incoherences  and  his 
fierce  ambition  ?  One  might  as  well  debate  wheth- 
er the  fact  of  the  Thames  being  so  thoroughly 
English  did  not  atone  for  the  dirt  of  its  waters 
below  London.  What  is  the  use  of  debating 
whether  Bacon's  method  was  original,  when,  on 
the  principles  of  scientific  determinism,  there  is 
nothing  original  in  the  universe?  On  determinist 
principles,  one  might  just  as  sanely  debate  wheth- 
er Saturn  is  original  in  surrounding  himself  with 
his  peculiar  rings;  or  whether  the  qualities  of  a 
particular  magnum  of  champagne  had  been  added 
by  the  wine  to  itself  after  it  had  been  corked  up 
in  the  bottle,  and  did  not  depend  on  the  grapes  of 
which  the  wine  was  made,  and  the  methods  em- 
ployed in  fortifying,  in  corking,  and  maturing  it. 
What  should  we  think  of  some  Macaulay  or 
84 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

Tacitus,  having  drunk  such  a  magnum  and  been 
bitterly  disappointed  in  his  expectations  of  it,  had 
described  it  in  the  following  way,  as  though  it 
had  been  some  obnoxious  statesman :  "  Born  of  the 
noblest  grapes,  matured  in  the  most  famous  cellars, 
it  enjoyed  these  advantages  only  to  disregard  or 
abuse  them.  The  grandeur  of  its  inherited  nature 
it  sacrificed  to  its  own  incoherences.  A  lukewarm 
friend  at  night,  and  a  cowardly  foe  next  morning; 
prodigal  of  its  bubbles  to  the  air,  but  conveying 
no  flavor  to  the  palate;  it  frothed,  but  it  did  not 
sparkle;  it  stupefied,  but  it  did  not  exhilarate. 
Yet  retaining  still,  as  it  did,  its  cork  with  the 
golden  foil,  the  label  which  was  the  blazon  of  its 
house,  and  the  clear  and  glorious  color  for  which 
all  its  race  had  been  celebrated,  we  may  say  of  it, 
in  words  suggested  by  those  of  a  great  historian, 
that  it  was  a  wine  worth  drinking  if  only  it  had 
never  been  drunk."  Language  such  as  this  is  no 
more  absurd  and  irrelevant  when  applied  to  a 
magnum  of  champagne  than  it  would  be  when 
applied,  as  it  is,  to  kings,  statesmen,  and  philoso- 
phers, unless  we  believed  that  the  latter  possessed 
some  faculty  of  self -direction,  which  science  can 
discover  in  man  no  more  than  it  can  in  a  wine- 
bottle. 

To  this  criticism,  however,  a  certain  answer  is 
possible,  and  it  is  one  which  has  been  elaborately 
made  by  a  distinguished  scientific  thinker.  Let  it 
be  granted  that  the  denial  of  freedom  does  reduce 
personalities  to  mere  intermediate  links  in  one  vast 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

system  of  causation.  Let  it  be  granted  that  they 
are  thus  robbed  of  all  individual  interest.  This, 
says  Herbert  Spencer,  is  the  precise  result  to  be 
aimed  at,  as  the  first  condition  of  studying  history 
rationally.  History,  he  says,  as  studied  and  writ- 
ten hitherto,  is  useless,  for  the  very  reason  that  it 
treats  historical  characters  as  though  they  were 
really  the  authors  of  the  acts  that  have  made  them 
prominent.  Neither  they  nor  the  mass  of  mankind 
are  more  than  "proximate  causes";  and  the  only 
true  explanation  of  what  they  have  done  and  been 
is  to  be  sought  in  "the  aggregate  of  conditions" 
out  of  which  they  have  all  arisen.  The  biographi- 
cal method  of  history  is  the  method,  he  says,  of 
"the  village  gossip";  and  we  should  never  make 
a  single  discovery  with  regard  to  human  progress 
if  we  "read  ourselves  blind  over  the  biographies" 
of  all  the  great  men  that  ever  existed.  Caesar, 
Frederick  the  Great,  Napoleon,  are  phenomena 
without  meaning  unless  we  see  them  as  causes, 
which  are  themselves  merely  effects  of  other  causes 
preceding  them.  Such  was  Spencer's  theory;  but 
let  us  ask  how  he  applied  it  when  dealing  with 
practical  matters.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a 
man  who  disregarded  it  more  completely.  When 
he  wrote  as  a  practical  politician,  no  one  ever  ex- 
celled him  in  the  personal  rancor  with  which  he 
attacked  the  characters  of  Frederick  and  Napo- 
leon— the  greed  of  one,  the  criminal  egotism  of  the 
other.  In  dealing  with  his  own  concerns,  he  was 
at  the  greatest  pains  to  show  that  he — his  own 

86 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

private  self,  and  not  the  self  of  Darwin — was  first 
in  conceiving  and  formulating  the  general  theory 
of  evolution,  a  matter  which  on  his  own  principles 
was  wholly  void  of  significance ;  while  he,  who  had 
denounced  biography  as  food  for  "the  village  gos- 
sip," devoted  his  later  years  to  compiling  two 
enormous  volumes  devoted  entirely  to  a  micro- 
scopic biography  of  himself  —  to  the  difficulties 
and  discouragements  he  encountered  and  his  own 
strength  of  will  in  overcoming  them.  Spencer's 
life  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  singular  intellectual  hero- 
ism, and  he  cannot  be  blamed  if  he  was  modestly 
conscious  of  the  fact;  but  the  admiration  which 
the  world  feels  for  him,  and  the  claims  made  by 
him  for  himself,  are  intelligible  only  on  the  sup- 
position that  he  possessed  a  free-will  of  his  own, 
which,  while  dismissing  it  in  theory  as  a  village 
gossip's  illusion,  he,  like  everybody  else,  accepted 
in  practice  as  a  reality.  Thus  one  of  the  few  de- 
terministic thinkers  who  have  deliberately  at- 
tempted to  interpret  concrete  life  by  determinism 
is  in  his  own  person  one  of  the  most  interesting 
witnesses  to  the  impossibility  of  interpreting  it 
intelligibly  without  a  covert  reintroduction  of  the 
plain  man's  belief  in  freedom. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  the  results  of  this  brief 
survey. 

Life,  as  a  conscious  process  which  is  the  object 
of  the  will  to  live,  being  wholly  an  affair  of  values, 
and  being  at  first  an  affair  of  values  that  are  purely 
sensational,  we  started  with  observing  that,  when 

87 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

it  becomes  civilized  it  owes  the  superiority  which 
civilized  men  ascribe  to  it,  to  the  fact  that  the 
sensational  values  have  been  multiplied,  enriched, 
and  refined  by  the  action  of  a  system  of  beliefs,  of 
which  the  belief  in  freedom,  self -causation  or  per- 
sonality, is  one  of  the  most  important.  Such  being 
the  case,  we  have  watched  this  belief  at  work  in 
the  creation  and  maintenance,  firstly,  of  certain 
particular  values,  and,  secondly,  of  the  valuation 
applied  to  human  conduct  generally.  We  thus 
saw  that  love  which,  in  its  ideal  form,  is,  apart 
from  direct  religion,  the  master-passion  of  life,  al- 
lying itself  with  all  ideals  from  that  of  sanctity  to 
those  of  adventure,  giving  their  main  interest  to 
the  drama,  the  poem,  and  the  romance,  and  vitaliz- 
ing social  intercourse  as  a  possibility,  an  experi- 
ence, or  a  recollection,  would,  were  the  belief  in 
freedom  really  expelled  from  our  consciousness, 
sink  to  the  level  of  a  bald  animal  appetite,  having 
no  other  concomitants  than  its  own  passing  satis- 
faction. We  saw  that  the  heroism  of  the  hero 
would  suffer  a  similar  degradation,  becoming  an 
idiosyncrasy  of  temperament,  like  the  courage  of  a 
fighting-cock;  and  we  saw  that  forgiveness  which, 
perhaps  even  more  than  love,  is  a  type  of  the 
qualities  in  one  man  which  rouse  a  response  in 
others,  would  be  not  merely  degraded,  but  would 
disappear  altogether,  its  place  being  taken  by  the 
blank  apathy  of  the  determinist,  which  is  in  its 
turn  as  typical  of  the  life-values  which  determin- 
ism leaves  us  as  forgiveness  is  of  those  which  the 

88 


CIVILIZATION    AND    FREE-WILL 

belief  in  freedom  creates.  A  more  general  survey 
of  conduct  yielded  the  same  results.  We  saw  that 
although,  without  any  belief  in  freedom,  conduct 
would,  according  to  its  social  usefulness,  be  still 
divisible  into  good  conduct  and  bad,  it  would  be 
good  or  bad  in  accordance  with  its  outward  effects 
only,  and  would  lose  the  whole  of  its  interest  as 
an  index  to  internal  character.  The  character  in 
short  would  be  the  effects,  and  if  we  attempted 
to  get  behind  them,  we  should  find  ourselves  in 
contact  with  something  that  was  not  human  char- 
acter at  all,  but  was  a  plexus  of  causes  and  con- 
ditions to  which  no  human  judgment  was  appli- 
cable, and  in  which  it  was  impossible  to  take  any 
human  interest.  In  other  words,  while  in  actual 
life,  as  on  the  stage,  personalities,  as  such,  are  the 
things  that  mainly  interest  us,  all  real  personality 
would  in  this  case  be  eliminated.  The  belief  in 
human  freedom,  then,  is  as  essential  to  our  moral 
and  aesthetic  life,  as,  within  its  own  limits,  is  the 
counter-belief  in  the  general  uniformity  of  nature; 
and  those  even  who  reject  it  theoretically  are 
compelled  unconsciously  to  assume  it. 

The  reader,  however,  must  recollect  that  noth- 
ing has  been  said  thus  far  to  the  effect  that  the 
belief  in  freedom  can  itself  be  reasonably  defend- 
ed. On  the  contrary,  we  are  still  supposing  that 
scientifically  it  is  out  of  the  question,  and  in- 
deed it  is  impossible  to  examine  the  practical  ef- 
fects of  it,  as  we  have  done,  and  not  to  be  con- 
scious at  every  step  taken  that  the  facts  of  our 

89 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

concrete  life,  apart  from  the  values  attached  to 
them,  can  be  explained  without  this  belief  far  more 
easily  than  with  it.  In  itself  it  is  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp  which  constantly  eludes  pursuit,  vanishing 
when  thought  too  nearly  approaches  it,  shining 
out  again  only  when  thought  recedes,  and  which 
we  might  well  dismiss  as  a  trick  of  our  own  eye- 
sight, if  it  were  not  for  the  definite  effects  of  the 
light  on  surrounding  objects,  and  the  way  in  which 
they  lose  all  color  the  moment  the  light  ceases. 

In  the  following  chapter  we  will  consider  the 
effects  of  a  belief  in  God. 


MENTAL    CIVILIZATION    AND    THE    BELIEF   IN   A 
CONSCIOUS    DEITY 

IN  all  cities  of  civilized  men,  from  the  West  to 
the  remotest  East,  from  the  Thebes  and  Babylon 
of  antiquity  to  the  Rome  of  the  modern  world, 
workshops,  places  of  business,  private  dwellings, 
and  palaces  have  been  dwarfed  individually  by 
the  superior  majesty  of  temples.  In  this  architect- 
ural phenomenon  we  have  an  image  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  The  other  buildings  subserved  ends 
which  were  merely  means  to  some  further  end. 
The  temples  subserved  some  end  which  was  sup- 
posed to  be  an  end  in  itself,  and  were  symbols  of 
the  importance  attached  to  it  by  the  instinctive 
beliefs  of  man. 

The  nature  of  this  end  has  been  conceived  of  in 
various  ways,  but  the  root  ideas  respecting  it  have 
in  every  case  been  the  same.  It  has  been  con- 
ceived of  as  the  realization  of  a  certain  specific  re- 
lationship between  man  and  some  Power  which 
is  incomparably  greater  than  man,  but  which  is 
nevertheless  such,  and  connected  with  him  in  such 
a  way,  that  it  responds  to  his  conduct  and  even  to 

91 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

his  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  that  his  highest 
welfare  depends  on  the  attitude  which  he  adopts 
towards  it. 

This  Power  was  at  first  conceived  of  as  plural. 
It  was  split  up  by  primitive  man  into  a  large  num- 
ber of  deities;  and  man's  business  with  them  at 
first  was  supposed  to  be  mainly  that  of  appeasing 
their  malevolence,  or  securing  their  aid  by  bribes. 
But,  as  Spencer  observes,  the  progress  of  civilized 
thought  constantly  tended  to  merge  these  many 
deities  in  one,  the  Greeks  having  reached  this  re- 
sult as  philosophical  thinkers,  while  still  officially 
worshipping  the  entire  tribe  of  Olympus.  And 
along  with  this  change  there  has  also  taken  place 
another,  which  Spencer  does  not  mention,  but 
which  is  even  more  important.  As  the  many  gods 
were,  by  thought,  gradually  merged  in  one  God, 
man's  conception  of  godhead  as  a  something  to  be 
cajoled  or  pacified  gave  place  to  a  conception  of  it 
as  a  something  with  which  men  might  hold  com- 
munion. For  Plato  it  was  known  in  man's  longing 
for  whatever  is  good  and  beautiful.  For  Plotinus, 
through  a  conquest  of  the  flesh,  it  was  known  in 
a  saint's  ecstasy.  And  the  God  of  modern  religion, 
whatever  He  may  be  else,  is  a  synonyme  for  that 
in  which  all  aspirations  are  realized;  in  which  in- 
tellect answers  to  intellect ;  in  which  heart  answers 
to  heart;  in  which  every  vague  desire  for  a  some- 
thing we  know  not  what — for  something  which,  as 
Plato  says,  "we  augur  but  cannot  see" — finds  its 
proper  object  and  is  at  rest. 

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CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

Christianity,  it  is  true,  specializes  this  general 
conception,  but,  except  for  this,  does  nothing  to 
alter  its  character.  God,  therefore,  may  be  here 
regarded,  in  accordance  with  what  has  been  said 
already,  as  the  personal  and  responsive  object  of 
any  aspiration  of  any  kind  which  transcends  this 
life's  possibilities,  no  matter  what  its  character; 
and  we  will  now  go  on  to  consider  how  this  belief, 
wholly  inadmissible  as  it  is  on  current  scientific 
principles,  is  implied  in  civilized  life,  and  is  prac- 
tically necessary  for  its  maintenance. 

And  here  again,  as  when  dealing  with  the  case 
of  freedom,  we  shall  not  look  for  the  effects  of  the 
belief  in  question  in  any  direct  expressions  of  it 
such  as  creeds,  prayers,  adorations,  or  any  rule  of 
life  specifically  and  intentionally  religious,  but  in 
quarters  where  it  operates  indirectly,  and  does  not 
show  itself  on  the  surface.  We  shall  look  for  it 
in  those  aspirations  or  self -orientations  of  spirit, 
those  tastes,  those  propensities,  and  moral  and 
aesthetic  discriminations,  a  marked  want  of  which 
stamps  a  man,  in  the  eyes  of  everybody,  not  as 
irreligious,  but  as  tasteless,  foolish,  or  degraded. 

There  is  no  difficulty,  so  far  at  least  as  general 
conceptions  are  concerned,  in  realizing  what  these 
are;  for  thinkers  of  all  schools,  in  a  general  way, 
are  agreed  about  them.  Professor  Haeckel,  who, 
in  the  opinion  of  his  opponents,  is  the  arch-ma- 
terialist of  to-day,  asserts  as  clearly  as  the  most 
mystical  Christian  that  they  resolve  themselves 
into  an  appreciation  of  three  things  —  the  True, 

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RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful.  Believing  himself 
in  no  God,  he  calls  these  "the  three  Goddesses," 
and  declares  that  the  life  of  civilized  and  cultured 
men  would  cease  to  be  civilized,  would  cease  to 
have  any  value,  if  it  were  not  constantly  lifting 
itself  towards  these  three  ideal  ends.  Spencer 
practically  says  just  the  same  thing,  so  everybody 
thus  far  is  in  a  state  of  happy  agreement.  The 
True,  the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful  may  be  under- 
stood in  various  senses;  but  in  every  civilized 
society,  and  in  every  stage  of  its  civilization,  they 
have  been  understood  in  some  sense,  and  in  that 
sense  they  have  been  valued.  Indeed,  without  the 
ideas  and  judgments  corresponding  to  these  words, 
it  is  evident  that  no  mental  civilization  could  pos- 
sibly exist  at  all;  for  any  one  who  preferred  their 
opposites  —  the  False,  the  Bad,  and  the  Ugly  — 
would  be  self -condemned  as  a  monster  unfit  for 
society  of  any  kind. 

Let  us  begin,  then,  with  examining  the  value 
attached  to  Truth.  The  value  of  Truth,  in  one 
sense,  is  independent  of  any  belief  except  a  belief 
in  the  lessons  which  social  experience  teaches  us 
—that  is  to  say,  its  value  in  social  and  business 
intercourse.  Without  a  general  conformity  to 
truth,  as  understood  thus,  no  society  could  exist- 
not  even  a  society  of  rooks,  members  of  which  give 
warning  to  the  others  on  the  approach  of  danger. 
But  though  such  Truth  is  essential  to  all  gregari- 
ous animals,  and  to  civilized  men  more  especially, 
it  is  not  coextensive  with  Truth  as  civilized  men 

94 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

value  it.  It  possesses,  indeed,  none  of  those  pe- 
culiar qualities  attributed  to  it  by  civilized  men 
as  distinct  from  birds  and  savages.  All  societies, 
in  proportion  to  their  mental  culture,  are  pervaded 
by  some  idea  that  Truth,  apart  from  its  social 
utilities,  possesses  a  value  for  its  own  sake  which, 
if  indeterminate,  is  profound.  This  fact  is  illus- 
trated by  the  countless  casuistical  controversies 
which  have  taken  place,  and  which  take  place  still, 
with  regard  to  the  familiar  question  of  whether,  or 
in  what  sense,  a  lie  can  ever  be  justified.  Here 
we  have  the  idea  of  a  merely  social  truthfulness, 
for  which  the  scientific  explanation  of  existence  is 
perfectly  competent  to  account,  beginning  to  de- 
velop itself  into  the  idea  of  Truth  of  a  wider  kind ; 
and  it  is  this  kind  of  Truth  which  alone  concerns 
us  here. 

Truth,  thus  valued  for  its  own  sake,  does  not 
mean  particular  truths,  but  the  general  facts  or 
principles  on  which  man's  whole  existence  de- 
pends. "The  gladness  of  true  heroism,"  said  Tyn- 
dall,  "visits  the  heart  of  him"  who  can  honestly 
say  that  "he  covets  Truth"  in  this  sense,  even 
though  the  pursuit  of  it  leaves  him  no  remnant  of 
the  beliefs  which  he  once  most  valued.  The  wise 
man,  says  Spencer,  will  fearlessly  follow  such 
Truth  knowing  that,  whatever  happens,  all  will  in 
the  end  be  "well."  I  will  follow  such  Truth,  said 
Huxley,  even  though  it  lead  me  nowhere  but  into 
the  tangles  of  the  "selva  oscura."  The  pursuit  of 
such  Truth,  said  Nietzsche,  "we  prize  more  highly 

95 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

than  any  other  delight,"  while  Professor  Haeckel 
says  that  it  turns  all  nature  into  a  "cathedral," 
which,  far  more  efficaciously  than  any  Christian 
place  of  worship,  lifts  men  up  "above  the  misery 
and  prose  of  life."  And  if  this  reverence  and  de- 
sire for  Truth,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word, 
has  existed  to  some  extent,  as  it  has  always  done, 
in  civilized  societies  generally,  the  modern  world 
exhibits  it  in  a  condition  of  development  and 
orderly  vitality  to  which  it  has  never  obtained  in 
any  previous  age.  This  desire  and  reverence  have 
now  definitely  associated  themselves  with  the  in- 
terpretation of  nature  by  means  of  the  scientific 
method.  It  is,  therefore,  in  the  modern  devotion 
to  science  that  we  find  our  best  example  of  that 
appreciation  of  Truth  which  we  are  now  going  to 
examine  as  related  to  the  belief  in  God.  And  the 
devotion  to  science,  in  this  connection,  possesses  a 
peculiar  interest,  because  it  not  only  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  men  generally,  not  identified  with  the 
religious  belief  in  question,  but  is  also  by  men  of 
science  themselves — or  at  least  by  most  of  them 
—held  to  be  inconsistent  with  it. 

A  careful  analysis  of  the  passion  for  scientific 
Truth  will  yield  results  which  will  probably  be  a 
surprise  to  many.  The  personal  interest  in  reality, 
as  it  exists  in  the  scientific  universe,  the  longing 
to  be  brought,  through  knowledge,  into  close  per- 
sonal contact  with  it,  will,  on  analysis,  be  found  to 
contain  in  solution  a  belief  that  there  is  in  the 
universe  some  Principle  or  other  responsive  to  the 

96 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

interest  which  man,  its  minute  product,  feels  in  it. 
This  belief  has  hitherto  been  unsuspected  for  two 
reasons.  One  undoubtedly  is  the  fact  that  the 
official  exponents  of  religion  have  largely  refused 
to  admit  that  any  such  Principle  can  exist,  unless 
it  is  a  God  who  wrote  with  his  own  finger  a  single 
series  of  books  for  the  benefit  of  one  small  tribe, 
disturbing  for  its  benefit  also  the  whole  course  of 
the  solar  system.  But  a  deeper  reason  for  the 
failure  of  scientific  men  to  recognize  a  belief  in 
the  existence  of  a  responsive  cosmic  Principle  as 
the  true  rationale  of  the  scientific  passion  for 
Truth  consists  in  the  fact  that  science,  as  at  pres- 
ent interpreted,  has  no  language  in  which  such  a 
belief  can  be  expressed,  and  having  thus  rendered 
it  dumb,  not  unnaturally  supposes  it  to  be  dead. 
A  very  little  reflection,  however,  will  be  enough  to 
show  us  that  this  belief,  which  men  of  science 
repudiate,  is  really  the  source  of  the  passion  by 
which  all  their  efforts  are  inspired. 

It  is  a  mere  truism  of  psychology  to  say  that 
nothing  can  be  of  any  interest  to  us  except  for 
the  sake  of  the  effects  which  it  produces  in  our 
own  consciousness.  We  are  interested  in  count- 
less things  which  we  do  not  regard  as  mental, 
and  which  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  making  any 
mental  response  to  us  —  such  as  houses,  trains, 
wines,  and  the  natural  facts  connected  with  them; 
but  we  feel  this  interest  only  because  the  things 
in  question  are  forced  by  us  to  translate  them- 
selves ultimately  into  terms  of  our  own  enjoy- 

97 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

ment.  But  mere  facts,  as  unrelated  facts,  have 
no  meaning  whatever  for  us.  Dr.  Johnson,  as  an 
illustration  of  his  view  that  foreign  travel  was  use- 
less, asked  what  Topham  Beauclerk  learned  by 
going  to  Egypt.  Merely,  he  said,  that  there  was 
a  green  snake  at  the  top  of  one  of  the  pyramids. 
A  series  of  facts  unrelated  to  ourselves,  would  have 
no  more  meaning  for  us  than  the  existence  of  Top- 
ham  Beauclerk's  snake.  If  nature,  then,  in  its 
particulars  is  of  interest  to  us  so  far  only  as  it 
ministers  to  our  conscious  wants  by  direct  material 
service,  nature  considered  in  its  totality  can  be  of 
no  interest  to  us  either  except  in  so  far  a  knowl- 
edge of  it  ministers  to  our  wants  also ;  but  since  it 
is  obvious  that  by  studying  nature  in  its  totality 
we  shall  be  able  to  extract  from  it  no  material 
service  whatsoever,  it  can  interest  us  only  because 
in  proportion  as  we  study  it  we  believe  that  we 
shall  catch  the  whisper  of  some  mental  message 
from  a  Mind  whose  character  is  congruous  to  all 
that  we  most  value  in  our  own.  If  it  cannot  be  our 
physical  servant  it  must  be  our  mental  companion ; 
and  if  it  be  our  mental  companion  it  must  be  what 
is  meant  by  a  Deity.  Unless  we  surrender  all 
attempts  at  precise  thinking,  it  is  logically  and 
psychologically  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  of  it 
in  any  other  way.  Nature  in  its  totality,  if  we 
refuse  to  conceive  of  it  thus,  might  just  as  well  be 
an  enormous  humming-top  at  whose  performances 
we  might,  for  moments,  find  some  amusement  in 
gaping,  like  a  boy  whom  Ruskin  once  found  in 

98 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

Ireland  amusing  himself  by  spitting  into  a  river 
from  one  parapet  of  a  bridge  and  watching  his 
saliva  float  by  from  the  other. 

Truth,  then,  as  the  object  of  the  scientific  pas- 
sion, cannot  possibly  be,  for  the  men  whom  that 
passion  so  strongly  actuates,  the  kind  of  Truth 
which  it  seems  to  be  according  to  their  official 
analysis  of  it.  It  is  evident  that  their  minds  sub- 
consciously must  attribute  to  the  universe  in  its 
totality  the  precise  quality  which  their  conscious 
logic  denies  to  it.  That  is  to  say,  they  must  sub- 
consciously regard  it  as  capable  of  responding  to 
the  passion  which  aspires  to  explore  its  secrets, 
and  of  doing  so  in  a  language  congruous  to  that 
of  the  aspiration  itself.  Thus  in  so  far  as  the 
modern  devotion  to  Truth  is  concerned,  the  very 
science  by  which  God  is  denied  is  itself  a  search 
for  God. 

That  such  is  the  case  has  been  recognized  very 
clearly  by  the  keenest,  the  most  original,  and  the 
most  outspoken,  of  the  modern  champions  of 
atheism.  "Everywhere,"  says  Nietzsche,  "where 
the  spirit  of  the  age  works  seriously,  it  works 
without  any  ideal  except  the  ideal  implicit  in  the 
fact  that  it  wills  the  Truth.  But  this  will,  this 
ghost  of  an  ideal,  is,  if  you  will  only  believe  me, 
the  ascetic  ideal  of  the  Christian  religion  itself, 
under  a  yet  severer,  a  yet  more  unearthly  guise 
—denuded  yet  more  completely  of  all  external 
trappings.  Or  rather,  it  is  not  so  much  the  ghost 
of  this  ideal  as  its  solid  core  and  kernel.  Modern 

99 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

atheism,  in  short,  of  the  most  absolute  and  con- 
sistent kind,  is  merely  the  catastrophic  climax  of 
two  thousand  years  of  the  Christian  cult  of  Truth, 
which  ends  with  denying  itself  even  the  comfort 
of  a  lying  faith  in  God."  All  that  here  calls  for 
correction  is  the  perversity  of  this  last  paradox. 
The  obvious  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  Niet- 
zsche's own  criticism  is,  not  that  the  modern  sci- 
entific cult  of  Truth  is  an  old  religion  abandoning 
its  belief  in  God,  but  that  it  is  the  same  belief  re- 
born, which  has  not  yet  learned  to  re-express  itself. 

Science,  then,  which  is  for  the  modern  world 
the  supreme  symbol  of  Truth  in  the  wider  sense 
of  the  word,  and  has  associated  Truth  with  the 
extinction  of  all  religious  belief,  derives  all  its 
vitality  as  a  passion  from  the  belief  which  its  lips 
repudiate.  Without  a  belief  that  the  universe  is 
identified  with  a  Power  who  is  consciously  respon- 
sive to  our  own  personal  consciousness,  science, 
with  Truth  for  Truth's  sake  as  its  object,  would 
cease  to  exist,  having  lost  all  possible  meaning, 
though  it  would  remain  the  employe"  of  Medicine, 
Commerce,  and  Manufacture.  And  what  holds 
good  of  Truth  as  valued  and  pursued  by  science, 
holds  good  of  Truth  for  its  own  sake,  let  us  look  for 
it  where  we  will. 

And  now  from  the  idea  of  Truth,  let  us  pass  on 
to  that  of  Goodness,  with  which  we  shall  find  it 
convenient  to  associate  the  idea  of  Beauty,  as  not 
for  our  present  purpose  requiring  separate  treat- 
ment. 

100 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

Of  things  which  are  merely  good  as  means  to 
intermediate  ends  —  such  as  steam-coal  which  is 
good  because  it  generates  steam  in  engines,  and 
engines  which  are  good  because  they  propel  ships 
—we  are  naturally  not  speaking  here.  We  are 
speaking  of  things  whose  goodness  is  realized  in 
themselves.  Now,  whatever  Goodness,  or  the  Good, 
as  thus  understood,  may  be,  it  must  necessari- 
ly be  this  at  all  events — namely,  a  certain  state 
of  consciousness  which  in  some  sense  or  other  is 
desirable.  Taking,  then,  the  things  which  any 
civilized  race  calls  good,  whether  states  of  feeling 
themselves,  or  the  acts  or  objects  which  embody 
them,  and  not  troubling  ourselves  to  ask  particu- 
larly what  these  good  things  may  be,  let  us  con- 
sider them  as  a  whole  in  the  light  of  a  single  fact, 
which  science,  having  learned  it  from  the  intro- 
spective philosophies,  has  illustrated  and  verified 
for  itself,  and  invested  with  fresh  authority. 

This  is  the  fact  that  all  knowledge  is  relative, 
in  the  sense  that  external  things  have  none  of  the 
qualities  by  which  we  know  them,  but  are  known 
to  us  only  as  causes  of  effects  in  our  own  conscious- 
ness. We  have  dwelt  on  this  fact  already  in  a 
previous  chapter,  when  we  illustrated  it  by  the 
case  of  a  signal-lamp  which  is  commonly  called 
red,  because  most  men  who  look  at  it  experience 
a  sense  of  redness,  but  which  color-blind  men  for 
a  similar  reason  call  green.  Let  us  now  give  this 
fact  a  little  further  attention.  The  principle  in- 
volved in  it  does  not  apply  only  to  simple  sensa- 

8  IOI 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

tions  such  as  color,  or  as  taste,  scent,  sound.  It 
applies  to  states  of  consciousness  which,  though 
having  sensations  as  their  basis,  are  complicated 
by  associations,  habit,  racial  temperament,  and  so 
forth.  Thus  the  same  perfumes,  the  same  articles 
of  food,  are  to  one  man  delightful  and  appetizing 
while  they  nauseate  or  repel  another.  The  music 
to  which  the  savage  dances  would  make  the  Wag- 
nerian  writhe.  So,  too,  with  female  beauty — the 
foot  that  in  China  fascinates,  outside  China  is 
ludicrous.  The  Frenchman  turns  in  horror  from 
the  figure  of  which  the  rajah  dreams. 

And  with  what  we  call  Goodness,  the  case  is 
just  the  same.  Like  greenness,  niceness,  nastiness, 
female  attractiveness  and  ugliness,  it  comes  into 
being  with,  and  has  no  existence  apart  from,  the 
consciousness  of  those  who  recognize  it;  and  simi- 
larly the  quality  of  Goodness — the  quality  of  su- 
preme or  ideal  desirableness — is  identified  by  dif- 
ferent individuals  with  effects  produced  in  their 
consciousness  by  widely  different  conduct  on  their 
own  part  or  the  part  of  others. 

Thus  Jael,  the  murderess  of  the  man  who  had 
eaten  her  salt  and  trusted  her,  was  blessed  among 
women  in  her  own  eyes  and  those  of  her  nation, 
while  she  would,  among  Arab  tents,  have  been 
execrated  as  a  monster  of  treachery.  Among  the 
Spartans  Goodness  was  found  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  successful  theft.  Among  many  tribes  it 
is  found  in  the  consciousness  of  successful  butch- 
ery. For  girls  in  ancient  temples  it  was  Goodness 

102 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

to  surrender  their  chastity,  for  girls  in  Christian 
cloisters  Goodness  lies  in  guarding  it.  It  is  one 
thing  for  a  Paul,  another  for  a  Marcus  Aurelius; 
one  thing  for  a  Spurgeon,  another  for  a  Goethe 
or  a  Shelley,  and  again  another  for  the  mutilated 
Indian  fakir.  There  are  as  many  types  of  Goodness, 
in  short,  as  there  are  types  of  mental  civilization. 

Now  if  human  consciousness  is  for  ourselves  the 
only  kind  of  consciousness  that  exists,  Goodness  is 
merely  a  name  which  men  agree  to  give  to  any 
states  of  consciousness  which  they  experience  as 
pre-eminently  satisfying;  and  hence,  since  differ- 
ent individuals,  different  races,  and  the  same  races 
at  different  stages  of  their  development,  find  this 
pre-eminent  satisfaction  in  states  of  consciousness 
that  are  so  different — since  some  find  it  in  the 
animal  joy  of  living,  others  in  the  pride  of  con- 
quest and  the  virtue  that  is  synonymous  with 
valor,  others  'in  a  completeness  of  bodily  and  men- 
tal culture,  others  in  the  austere  rapture  that  re- 
wards the  discipline  of  the  ascetic — one  kind  of 
Goodness  must  be  just  as  good  as  the  others,  for 
there  is  no  common  standard  by  reference  to 
which  they  are  comparable.  Landor,  who  "  warmed 
both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life,"  the  saint  whose 
life  is  crucified  for  the  sake  of  Christ,  the  dying 
soldier  of  Islam  anticipating  the  Houris  of  Para- 
dise, the  husbandmen  of  pagan  Italy  whose  lot 
Virgil  envied,  would  "sua  si  bona  norint"  all  and 
equally  be  "fortunati  nimium."  Each  would  have 
realized  what  was  the  supreme  Good  for  himself. 

103 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Here,  however,  we  come  to  what  is  the  real 
heart  of  the  matter.  Though  every  kind  of  Good- 
ness which  men  have  valued  and  cultivated  as 
such  must,  if  human  consciousness  is  the  only 
consciousness  in  question,  be  good  only,  and  good 
equally,  for  those  who  so  regard  it,  it  has  never  been 
recognized  as  possessing  this  relative  character  by 
any  of  the  persons  who,  under  any  one  of  its  forms, 
have  pursued  it  themselves,  or  urged  its  pursuit 
on  others — by  any  of  the  great  teachers  such  as 
Gautama  or  Zoroaster  or  Socrates  or  Christ  or 
Mahomet,  or  by  any  of  the  great  societies  in  which 
its  pursuit  has  flourished.  It  has  always  been 
looked  on  as  a  something  which  is,  in  its  essence, 
absolute — which  is  above  and  independent  of  the 
vagaries  of  individual  taste.  The  Roman  idea  that 
it  was  good  to  die  for  one's  country  meant  not  that 
to  do  so  was  the  height  of  self-indulgence  for  every- 
body, but  that  those  who  chose  such  a  death  in 
preference  to  other  satisfactions  were  in  contact 
with  some  verity  which  raised  them  above  those 
who  did  not,  even  in  the  opinion  of  these  last  them- 
selves. In  the  Christian  societies  which  super- 
seded the  Roman,  honor,  which  was  for  the  world 
the  ideal  Goodness  in  a  man,  and  virginity  which 
was  for  the  Church  the  ideal  Goodness  in  a  woman, 
are  illustrations  of  the  same  fact.  Honor  was  not 
good  because  it  made  knights  happy ;  knights  were 
happy  because  they  retained  their  honor.  So,  too, 
the  Church,  and  the  world  which  received  its 
teaching,  certainly  never  meant  that  virginity  was 

104 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

a  good  thing  because  the  abstentions  involved  in 
it  were  naturally  pleasant  to  everybody.  They 
meant  that  it  was  good  in  some  absolute  and  ob- 
jective way,  let  the  natural  tastes  of  the  individual 
be  whatever  they  might  be.  And  this  conception 
of  the  nature  of  Goodness  as  absolute  has  tended 
to  become  more  and  more  unmistakable  in  pro- 
portion as  the  influence  of  the  Churches  over  secu- 
lar civilization  has  declined.  The  new  culture,  in 
denouncing  or  deriding  the  Churches  for  making 
Goodness  a  means  of  escaping  hell,  or  of  gaining 
admittance  to  the  revels  of  the  New  Jerusalem, 
has  insisted  with  an  added  emphasis  on  its  value 
for  its  own  sake  only — on  the  objective  and  self- 
contained  superiority  of  certain  states  of  conscious- 
ness to  others.  The  monumental  column,  marked 
with  degrees  of  Goodness  —  of  high,  low,  base, 
noble,  beautiful,  ugly,  and  so  forth — which  it  thus 
sets  up,  and  which  is  not  a  record  of  what  men's 
tastes  are,  but  a  confession  and  reminder  of  what 
all  men  admit  they  ought  to  be,  is  for  the  mental 
civilization  of  the  modern  world  a  structural  sup- 
port, in  the  absence  of  which  the  entire  fabric 
would  collapse  —  art  and  literature  suffering  the 
same  fate  as  sermons. 

The  reader  will  recollect  that,  in  considering 
Goodness  thus,  no  question  has  arisen,  except  for 
purposes  of  illustration,  as  to  the  character  of  the 
states  of  consciousness  to  which  the  quality  of 
Goodness  is  ascribed.  All  that  concerns  us  is  the 
fact  that,  ascribe  it  to  what  we  may,  Goodness  is 

105 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

conceived  of  as  having  a  value  not  contingent  on 
our  own  individual  recognition  of  it.  Such  being 
the  case,  then,  we  are  brought  to  the  final  question 
of  how  this  conception  of  any  absolute  Goodness 
is  justified — of  how  it  can  be  stated  in  scientific 
or  even  in  formally  reasonable  terms.  How  can 
there  be  such  a  thing  as  absolute  Goodness  any 
more  than  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  absolute 
greenness,  or  an  absolutely  pleasant  temperature 
for  a  hot  bath?  Green  things  are  green  only  for 
eyes  that  see  them  so.  A  pleasant  temperature  is 
pleasant  only  for  those  pleased  by  it.  How,  then, 
can  Goodness,  which,  like  pleasantness,  is  an  affec- 
tion of  our  personal  consciousness,  be  anything 
apart  from  what  different  people  think  it  to  be? 
How  can  it  be  conceived  of  as  possessing  any  in- 
dependent reality  of  its  own? 

When  the  question  has  been  thus  prepared,  the 
answer  becomes  self-evident.  The  absoluteness  of 
Goodness,  its  independence  of  individual  tastes, 
in  short  the  whole  of  the  special  value  attached  to 
it,  fails  to  be  nonsense,  and  is  capable  of  being 
intelligibly  stated,  on  one  supposition  only — the 
supposition  that  there  exists  a  supreme  and  uni- 
versal consciousness,  such  as  the  theist  means  by 
God,  to  whom  certain  things  are  good,  and  certain 
things  are  bad,  which  man  in  his  own  degree  is 
able  to  aim  at  or  reject.  The  reason  of  this  is 
evident.  If  any  such  thing  as  absolute  Goodness 
exists,  it  must  resemble  Goodness  of  the  relative 
and  contingent  kind  thus  far,  that  it  can  only  be 

106 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

Goodness  at  all  by  being  Goodness  for  a  conscious 
mind  of  some  sort;  and  if  it  is  to  be  absolute  in 
any  intelligible  sense,  and  not  contingent  on  the 
tastes  of  individual  men,  it  must  be  absolute  be- 
cause it  is  Good  for  some  conscious  Mind  that  is 
absolute,  all-comprehending,  self -existent,  eternal 
— a  Mind  whose  character  transcends  the  character 
of  man's,  but  with  which,  by  willing  the  Good,  man 
can  put  himself  in  connection. 

Thus  our  analysis  of  the  value  of  Goodness 
brings  us  to  the  same  point  as  that  to  which  we 
had  been  brought  already  by  our  analysis  of  the 
value  of  Truth.  In  proportion  as  we  ascribe  value 
to  one  or  the  other  for  its  own  sake — to  Goodness 
because  it  is  Goodness,  or  to  Truth  because  it  is 
Truth — we  ascribe  to  it  a  power  of  uniting  us  to 
that  larger  life  surrounding  us — a  kindred  universal 
Mind — from  which  we  have  ourselves  sprung.  And 
the  belief  that  this  Mind  which  is  in,  or  which  is, 
the  universe,  is  so  far  personal  as  to  be  aware  of 
and  respond  to  our  feelings — in  other  words,  that 
it  is  God — is  the  only  form  of  thought  by  means  of 
which  we  can  intelligibly  represent  to  ourselves  the 
validity  of  any  hope  or  interest  which  carries  us 
beyond  the  mere  affairs  of  the  moment,  or  is  not 
ultimately  referable  to  the  satisfaction  of  lust  or 
hunger. 

We  have  no  need  to  vilify  either  of  these  simple 
appetites;  but  they  do  not  contain  in  themselves, 
be  they  never  so  well  regulated,  the  essential  prin- 
ciple of  what  we  here  mean  by  civilization.  The 

107 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

progress  of  civilization,  as  exhibited  in  art,  science, 
and  literature,  in  the  deepening,  the  enrichment, 
the  adornment  of  social  life — direct  or  conscious 
religion  being  left  out  of  the  question — has  essen- 
tially been  a  progress  upward,  in  the  opinion  of 
those  concerned.  It  has  consisted  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  number  of  points  of  contact,  real  or 
supposed,  between  man's  terrestrial  existence  and 
existence  taken  as  a  whole,  these  points  of  contact 
being  Truth,  Goodness  and  Beauty.  The  crude 
sensational  pleasures  with  which  the  value  of  life 
begins,  are  transfigured  and  multiplied  by  associa- 
tion with  the  three  ideal  qualities;  and  civilization 
or  culture  thus  gradually  arises.  Such  civilization 
or  culture,  though  it  is  often  the  rival,  and  some- 
times the  avowed  foe  of  the  purely  religious  life 
which  is  consciously  vowed  to  God,  implies  a  belief, 
no  less  than  religion  itself  does,  that  a  Power  exists 
who,  even  if  He  is  held  to  differ  from  the  God 
adored  by  the  saint,  is  no  less  responsive  and  ac- 
cessible to  the  higher  activities  of  man.  There  is, 
in  short,  no  way  of  giving  validity  to  any  such 
form  of  civilization — whether  it  be  the  civilization 
of  Greece  or  Rome,  or  of  the  Christian  ages  of 
faith — except  by  means  of  a  belief  in  a  Power  of 
the  kind  described,  with  whose  general  character 
the  character  of  the  civilization  coincides.  This 
belief  need  not  always,  even  at  the  time  when  it 
is  most  operative,  be  consciously  recognized  as 
amounting  to  a  belief  in  any  God  at  all,  but  it  will 
be  found  to  imply  and  issue  in  it,  when  its  logical 

108 


CIVILIZATION    AND    THEISM 

content  has  been  analyzed.  Conversely,  any  con- 
scious denial  on  our  part  that  such  a  Being  ex- 
ists, or  any  form  of  agnosticism  which  reduces  Him 
to  a  negligible  quantity,  is  a  denial  of  the  value 
hitherto  attached  to  everything,  in  the  acquisition 
of  which,  or  in  the  effort  to  acquire  which,  mental 
civilization  has  been  held  hitherto  to  consist. 

We  have,  in  arriving  at  this  strict  conclusion, 
had  no  need  to  appeal  to  religious  or  other  senti- 
ment. It  has  been  enough  for  us  to  keep  within 
the  limits  of  well-known  psychological  facts,  and 
dry  mental  analysis.  In  the  following  chapter  we 
will  consider  briefly  the  effects  on  civilization  of  a 
belief  in  human  immortality;  and  we  will  then 
reconsider  the  various  results  arrived  at,  in  the 
light  of  considerations  of  a  more  or  less  extraneous 
kind. 


VI 


MENTAL    CIVILIZATION    AND    THE    BELIEF    IN 
HUMAN    IMMORTALITY 

THE  effects  of  the  belief  in  immortality  on  the 
practical  quality  of  life  are  more  easily  traceable 
than  the  effects  of  the  beliefs  in  God  or  freedom. 
The  following,  indeed,  have  always  been  obvious 
to  everybody.  Most  people  have  been  distressed 
by  a  sense  of  life's  seeming  injustice,  of  promising 
talents  never  suffered  to  mature  themselves,  and 
of  loves  and  valued  friendships  brutally  cut  short 
by  death;  while  to  many  the  mere  prospect  of  one 
day  ceasing  to  live,  brings  gloom  and  oppression 
whenever  they  allow  themselves  to  think  of  it. 
The  belief  in  immortality  palliates  all  these  doubts 
and  pains;  and  such  a  result  is,  in  each  of  these 
cases,  important.  But  the  belief  has  another  re- 
sult wider  and  more  important  still — a  belief,  more- 
over, in  which  all  these  are  included ;  and  we  will 
consider  this  first. 

In  order  that  life  should  possess  any  civilized 
value  at  all,  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  taken 
seriously,  and  that  the  difference  between  what  is 
good  and  bad  in  it  should  be  felt  to  be  of  enormous 

no 


BELIEF    IN    IMMORTALITY 

magnitude.  Indeed,  the  energies  that  produce,  and 
the  tastes  that  are  implied  in,  civilization  are  pro- 
portionate to  the  interval  by  which  the  best  in 
life  is  supposed  to  be  separated  from  the  worst. 

Now  in  earlier  days,  when  the  earth  was  the 
centre  of  the  universe,  when  the  gods  themselves 
dwelt  upon  earthly  mountains,  and  their  dealings 
with  man,  or  even  with  particular  men,  formed  the 
main  excitement  of  their  lives,  man's  imagination 
could  present  him  with  no  rival  to  himself,  and  a 
doubt  of  his  own  importance  very  rarely  occurred 
to  him.  A  hero  defied  the  lightning,  and  a  tyrant 
imitated  thunder,  without  any  suspicion  that  he 
was  playing  an  absurd  part.  Lucan  dreamed  of 
the  day  when  it  seemed  that  the  stars  of  heaven 
might  have  looked  down  on  nothing  that  was  not 
Roman.  To  the  Jew  it  seemed  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  that  the  Cosmic  Principle  should 
identify  itself  with  the  fortunes  of  a  single  town. 
In  order  that  every  act  of  man's  life,  every  choice 
between  good  and  evil,  should  be  invested  with 
an  overwhelming  interest,  it  was  not  necessary  to 
believe  that  his  life  would  be  indefinitely  prolonged. 

But  to-day,  with  the  progress  of  knowledge,  the 
entire  conditions  have  changed  under  which  man 
contemplates  his  own  place  in  the  universe.  The 
protagonist  of  the  universe  yesterday,  to-day  he  is 
one  of  its  minutest  products.  Apart  from  any 
qualities  with  which  belief  may  invest  him,  he  is 
merely  a  vanishing  bubble  on  the  surface  of  the 
sea  of  being.  How,  then,  is  it  possible  to  regard 

in 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

his  choice  between  goodness  and  badness,  beauty 
and  ugliness,  civilization  and  savagery,  as  possess- 
ing anything  more  than  a  vanishing  importance  for 
anybody  ?  How  will  any  one  be  able  to  take  even 
his  own  existence  seriously  ?  Nor  would  the  situa- 
tion in  this  respect  be  altered  appreciably  for  the 
better  by  the  mere  hypothesis  of  a  God  who,  per- 
fect and  eternal  himself,  took  notice,  while  they 
lived,  of  His  imperfect  and  mortal  creatures.  For 
since  no  Goodness,  not  even  the  Goodness  of  God, 
can  have  any  existence  except  in  some  conscious 
mind,  even  God's  Goodness,  though  eternal,  could 
not  exist  for  man  any  longer  than  man  continued 
to  exist  for  himself.  So  far  as  man  is  concerned, 
God's  eternity  would  cease  with  the  death  of  man, 
as  the  reflection  of  the  stars  in  a  mirror  ceases 
when  the  mirror  breaks. 

The  belief,  then,  in  man's  immortality  has  a  far 
wider  effect  than  that  of  providing  us  with  the 
prospect  of  a  prolonged  existence.  By  extending 
our  lives  into  the  future,  it  vindicates  their  impor- 
tance in  the  present.  It  provides  us,  as  it  were, 
with  a  powerful  spiritual  magnify  ing-glass,  which 
restores  to  its  old  dimensions  what  would  else  be 
daily  dwindling.  In  other  words,  it  has  come  to 
be,  at  the  present  day,  a  necessary  preamble  to 
any  serious  treatment  of  life;  not  because  every 
one  personally  is  anxious  to  live  again — for  many 
might  prefer  for  themselves  the  prospect  of  a  long 
night's  rest;  and  not  because  every  one  is  anxious 
to  be  restored  to  his  dead  acquaintances — for  many 

112 


BELIEF    IN    IMMORTALITY 

might  think  this  a  very  doubtful  advantage;  but 
because,  just  as  the  belief  in  God  is  the  only  logical 
form  under  which  Truth  and  Goodness  can  be 
thought  of  as  possessed  of  any  absolute  meaning, 
so  is  the  belief  in  immortality  the  only  logical  form 
under  which  their  meaning  can  be  thought  of  as 
being  for  ourselves  important. 

And  now  from  this  general  effect  of  the  belief 
in  immortality  on  life,  let  us  turn  back  to  those 
particular  effects,  of  which  we  took  notice  first — 
namely,  the  scope  afforded  by  it  for  confidence  that 
the  injustices  of  this  life  will  be  redressed,  that 
friends  and  lovers  parted  by  death  will  be  reunited, 
and  that  activities  and  self -developments  arrested 
by  death  will  be  completed.  We  shall  find  that 
the  general  effect  contains  and  implies  all  these. 
Thus,  if  it  were  not  for  the  possibility  which  this 
belief  suggests  to  us  that  the  injustices  of  the  pres- 
ent life  will  be  some  day  redressed  somehow,  any 
Goodness  ascribed  to  God  would  not  only  be  mean- 
ingless for  ourselves ;  it  would  not  be  even,  in  any 
true  sense,  conceivable.  Any  one  can  see  this. 
But  what  is  equally  important  is  the  fact,  not  per- 
haps equally  obvious,  that  the  effects  of  the  be- 
lief in  immortality  on  affection,  effort,  and  self -de- 
velopment generally,  do  not  end  with  the  comfort 
which  it  offers  to  the  bereaved  and  the  unsuccess- 
ful ;  but  depend  on  a  characteristic  which  underlies 
all  life,  so  long  as  it  is  invested  with  the  values 
which  mental  civilization  ascribes  to  it.  This 
characteristic  is  that,  whenever  we  realize  by  ex- 

"3 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

perience  the  value  which  civilization  ascribes  to 
certain  mental  conditions — such,  for  example,  as 
the  desire  for  speculative  Truth — our  experience, 
in  proportion  as  it  deepens,  develops  into  a  sense 
of  its  own  present  incompleteness,  and  points  to 
some  farther  consummation  not  possible  here. 
The  sense  that  deep  affection  is  stultified  if  death 
ends  everything,  is  merely  one  example  of  a  much 
more  general  fact.  If  affection  is  stultified  by 
death,  so  is  the  desire  for  Truth,  so  is  the  desire  for 
Goodness;  for  the  value  of  neither  of  them,  if  they 
have  any  value  at  all,  can  be  realized  here  except 
by  way  of  a  foretaste.  The  more  highly  developed 
the  values  of  a  mental  civilization  are — whether 
these  values  be  associated  with  beauty,  love,  mor- 
als, or  scientific  truth — the  more  evidently  do  the 
values  realized  depend  on  values  suggested.  If 
ever  immediate  realization  for  its  own  sake  was  an 
object,  it  was  so  in  the  civilization  of  Greece;  and 
yet  the  thinkers  of  Greece,  when  they  submitted 
life  to  analysis,  were  foremost  in  isolating  the 
idea  of  a  Goodness  here  unattainable,  as  an  ulti- 
mate object  to  which  all  attainment  points.  And 
now  when  aided  by  science  which  dwarfs  all  ter- 
restrial things,  and  draws  away  the  veil  from 
man's  terrestrial  pettiness,  we  carry  the  analysis 
of  the  Greek  thinkers  farther,  and  realize  that,  as 
was  shown  in  the  previous  chapter,  the  ultimate 
object  of  civilization  must  be  necessarily  some 
approach  to  God — to  an  Existence  which  is  in  fact 
what  man  is  only  in  aspiration — the  nature  of  the 

114 


BELIEF    IN    IMMORTALITY 

part  played  by  the  belief  in  immortality  will  be 
clear. 

The  mere  belief  that  life,  as  opposed  to  death, 
will  be  prolonged,  if  this  carries  with  it  no  idea  of 
a  higher  and  wider  development,  is  just  as  likely 
to  degrade  a  race  as  to  raise  it.  No  Christian 
saint  ever  has  believed,  or  indeed  ever  could  be- 
lieve, in  a  future  life  more  vividly  than  the  savages 
of  Dahomey  and  Benin.  For  them  to  die  is  to 
pass  into  another  world,  as  to  pass  through  a  door 
with  us  is  to  pass  into  another  room;  but  with 
them  the  result  of  this  remarkable  gift  of  faith,  is 
not  to  make  life  sacred,  but  to  give  them  a  diabolic 
contempt  for  it.  When  one  of  their  kings  dies  a 
host  of  subjects  is  massacred,  in  order  that  he  may 
have  in  the  next  world  a  suitable  guard  of  honor, 
and  their  faith  fills  their  capitals  with  the  stench 
of  human  carcasses.  The  belief  is  essential,  in- 
deed is  so  much  as  conducive,  to  civilized  life,  only 
when  taken  in  connection  with  a  civilized  belief  in 
God,  and  it  then  is  essential  mainly  for  what  may 
seem  to  be  the  indirect  reason,  that  it  provides  this 
belief  with  sufficient  space  for  its  operations.  If 
our  interest  in  the  true  and  the  good  as  means  of 
approaching  God,  is  limited  by  the  short  and  pre- 
carious life  of  our  organisms,  our  belief  in  God 
loses  all  practical  efficacy,  not  only  because  the 
union  with  God  could  not  last  forever,  but  because, 
as  things  are,  it  could  never  take  place  at  all,  and 
because  it  ceases  to  be  of  very  much  moment 
whether  it  ever  takes  place  or  no. 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more  about  this  belief 
here,  partly  because  its  effects  on  civilized  life  are 
included  in  the  effects  of  the  beliefs  in  God  and 
freedom,  and  consist  mainly  in  rendering  these 
efficacious;  but  partly  also  because,  if  we  accept 
the  belief  in  freedom  as  being,  what  we  have  seen 
it  to  be,  essential  to  civilized  life,  the  belief  in 
immortality,  as  has  been  pointed  out  already,  intro- 
duces no  new  difficulty.  If  a  man's  will  is  really 
independent  of  his  body — if  in  any  sense  it  is  more 
than  a  mere  function  of  it — there  can  be  no  a 
priori  reason  for  supposing  that  it  conies  to  an  end 
when  his  body  does.  The  probability  is  the  other 
way. 

In  the  following  chapter  our  analysis  of  the  prac- 
tical effects  of  religious  belief  on  the  quality  of 
civilized  life  will  be  reconsidered  in  connection  with 
the  attempts  of  scientific  thinkers  to  provide  us 
with  a  substitute  for  it  of  a  purely  scientific  kind ; 
and  in  this  way  the  results  which  we  have  reached 
already  will  be  brought  into  yet  closer  connection 
with  the  concrete  facts  of  experience. 


VII 

THE    PRACTICAL    FUTILITY    OF    THE    PROPOSED 
SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

No  doubt  to  many  people  the  whole  of  our  pres- 
ent analysis,  which  begins  with  identifying  civili- 
zation with  certain  ideals  and  aspirations,  and 
then  exhibits  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  religion 
as  the  logical  basis  of  these,  and  their  sole  logical 
justification,  will  seem  little  better  than  a  playing 
with  words  and  dreams.  The  true  business  of  man 
is,  they  will  say,  with  reality,  and  not  with  the 
false  colors  which  the  moonlight  of  idealism  throws 
on  it,  and  which  are  valued  only  as  hints  that  we 
shall  one  day  get  the  moon.  They  will,  however, 
see  reason  to  revise  their  opinion,  when  we  turn  to 
the  assertions  and  admissions  which  our  modern 
scientific  philosophers  make  with  regard  to  science 
in  its  bearings  on  human  life. 

To  some  of  these  we  have  made  brief  allusion 
already  —  especially  to  certain  admissions  on  the 
part  of  Professor  Haeckel  and  Spencer;  and  we 
will  now  betake  ourselves  again  to  these  two  most 
distinguished  thinkers,  as  the  best  representatives 
available  of  the  purely  scientific  spirit,  which,  push- 
9  117 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

ing  the  beliefs  of  theism  altogether  on  one  side, 
endeavors  to  construct  a  doctrine  of  life  without 
them.  Apart  from  their  other  qualifications,  they 
are  specially  suitable  for  our  purpose,  because  in 
both  of  them  sentiment  is  reduced  to  a  minimum, 
and  nothing  that  is  capable  of  degenerating  or 
expanding  into  mysticism  is  admitted  into  the 
system  of  either  except  under  severe  compulsion. 
Both  alike  claim,  in  dealing  with  practical  life,  that 
"the  new  ethical  monism"  —  the  substitute  for 
theistic  religion  —  rests  altogether,  as  Professor 
Haeckel  puts  it,  "on  the  solid  ground  of  purely 
social  instinct,"  and  is  "essentially  the  same  in 
man  and  all  other  gregarious  animals." 

The  almost  puritanical  severity  of  this  bald, 
non-mystical  naturalism  adds  to  the  interest  of 
the  fact  which  will  now  claim  our  attention.  In 
spite  of  their  doctrine  that  the  ethical  conduct  of 
man  is  essentially  identical  with  the  instinct  of 
other  gregarious  animals,  and  has  nothing  to  do 
with  any  special  beliefs  on  man's  part,  both  think- 
ers are  compelled  to  supplement  this  doctrine  with 
another  of  a  totally  different,  and,  indeed,  of  an 
opposite,  character.  Thus  Spencer,  while  insist- 
ing in  his  Data  of  Ethics  that  altruism  is  the  active 
agent  of  all  ethical  progress,  asserts  that  egoism 
must  provide  it  with  the  material  on  which  it  works ; 
that  the  result  of  the  interaction  of  the  ego  with 
the  other  members  of  its  society  will  depend  on 
the  primary  claims  which  each  ego  makes  for  it- 
self; and  that  the  nature  of  these  claims  will,  in 

118 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

their  turn,  depend  on  the  beliefs  entertained  by 
the  ego  as  to  its  own  place  in  the  universe.  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  is  constrained  to  enunciate  precisely 
the  same  conclusion;  and,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  fact  that  our  own  present  analysis  deals 
only  with  man's  life  in  proportion  as  it  becomes 
civilized,  the  language  in  which  the  conclusion  is 
stated  by  him  is  here  specially  pertinent.  "  In  the 
case,"  he  says,  "of  civilized  men,  all  ethics,  theo- 
retical and  practical,  is  connected  with  their  view 
of  the  world  at  large."  In  other  words,  though 
the  primary  elements  of  morality  depend  on  the 
relations  existing  between  each  man  and  his  fel- 
lows, its  upward  course  depends  on  the  conceptions 
formed  by  us  of  the  relations  existing  between  each 
man  and  the  universe. 

Nor  is  this  all;  for  both  Professor  Haeckel  and 
Spencer  unite  in  claiming  for  such  a  conception 
the  name  and  qualities  of  a  religion.  In  it,  says 
Professor  Haeckel,  are  blended  our  "emotional 
cravings"  for  "the  Good"  with  "our  reasonable 
cravings"  for  "the  True";  and  "love,  which  for 
thousands  of  years  has  been  the  chief  source  of 
the  uplifting  of  men,"  is  seen,  he  says,  in  the  light 
of  this  conception,  to  lead  us  up  to  "the  ideal 
Good  at  its  highest."  So,  too,  says  Spencer,  it  is 
only  through  this  conception  of  our  relation  to  the 
universal  Cause  of  which  all  Nature  is  a  mani- 
festation, that  we  raise  ourselves  above  the  level 
of  the  immediate,  the  contingent,  and  the  transi- 
tory. "It  is  not  for  nothing,"  he  says,  that  this 

119 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Cause  has  implanted  in  us  "  sympathies  with  some 
principles  and  a  repugnance  to  others";  and  "the 
wise  man"  who  studies  its  manifestations,  and 
"fearlessly  utters"  what  he  learns  about  them, 
though  every  existing  creed  should  by  this  means 
be  discredited,  may  be  confident  that  "  he  is  play- 
ing his  right  part  in  the  world." 

It  is,  then,  only  by  the  introduction  of  ideal 
conceptions  of  the  universe  that  these  two  most 
prosaic  of  non  -  theistic  philosophers  are  able  to 
present  us  with  a  picture  of  civilized  life  as  higher 
than  that  of  the  savage,  which  they  take  as  the 
human  zero.  Now,  thus  far  their  position  is  the 
same  as  our  own;  but  when  we  come  to  inquire 
what  the  conceptions  of  the  universe  are,  by  means 
of  which  our  lives  are  to  be  brought  into  conscious 
connection  with  it,  and  uplifted,  idealized,  and 
enlarged,  in  the  manner  just  described,  what  sort 
of  conceptions  do  we  find  ? 

Both  philosophers  with  regard  to  this  point  are 
unanimous.  The  conception  of  the  universe,  or 
Nature,  says  Spencer,  to  which  science  leads  us— 
and  which  is,  he  adds,  the  only  conception  of  it 
which  is  truly  and  purely  religious  — is  the  con- 
ception of  it  as  a  manifestation  of  a  Cause  about 
which  we  can  affirm  nothing.  Nothing  is  so  irre- 
ligious, besides  being  so  unscientific,  as  to  call  it 
either  conscious  or  personal.  All  we  can  say  of 
it  is  that  it  is  an  "utterly  inscrutable  mystery." 
Professor  Haeckel,  with  more  detail,  enunciates 
the  same  doctrine.  His  way  of  putting  the  case 

I2O 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

comes  practically  to  this.  Let  us  ascribe  to  Nature 
any  qualities  we  please,  provided  only  that  they  be 
interesting  and  morally  intelligible  to  ourselves; 
and  science  informs  us  that  our  ascription  to  it  of 
any  qualities  such  as  these  is  nothing  more  than 
"an  anthropistic  illusion."  In  especial,  says  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel,  the  common  idea  that  Nature 
represents  any  love  for  ourselves,  or  even  any 
consciousness  of  our  existence,  is  the  arch-allusion 
which  must  be  extirpated  first  and  foremost. 
How,  then,  is  a  conception  of  our  relation  to  this 
aggregate  of  uncompromising  negations  to  have 
any  of  those  elevating  and  highly  delightful  re- 
sults which  Professor  Haeckel  and  Spencer,  with 
such  charming  confidence,  expect  from  it? 

Let  us  consider  Professor  Haeckel's  attempt  at 
answering  this  question  first.  Civilized  life  is  dis- 
tinguished, according  to  him,  from  savagery,  be- 
cause it  is  made  up  of  ideals,  and  in  varying  de- 
grees realizes  them;  and  the  two  most  important 
ideals  are  those  of  Love  and  Truth.  Truth,  which 
means  the  scientific  truths  of  Nature,  and  the 
teaching  of  which  to  the  young  is  to  supplant  all 
other  forms  of  education,  is  to  fill  us  with  "awe 
by  exhibiting  to  us  the  working  of  energy,"  and 
with  "reverence  by  exhibiting  to  us  the  univer- 
sality of  law."  Ideal  Love,  when  realized,  is  a 
union  which  transcends  the  senses,  and  consists  in 
a  "spiritual  relation"  between  the  lovers,  and  "a 
constant  intimate  intercourse,"  which,  as  we  have 
seen  already,  is  to  have  the  effect  of  "uplifting" 

121 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

them.  But  since  intercourse  is  uplifting  only 
when  it  deals  with  uplifting  subjects,  and  since 
the  main  subject  which  is  to  be  the  bond  of  up- 
lifting union  between  the  lovers  is  none  other  than 
the  Nature  which  has  produced,  and  which  en- 
folds, both  of  them,  the  loves  of  the  lovers  in  their 
bower,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  scholar  in  his 
class-room,  are  really  both  dependent  on  the  con- 
ception of  Truth  in  Nature. 

When,  however,  we  recollect  how,  according  to 
Professor  Haeckel,  we  need  but  think  in  succes- 
sion of  all  the  interesting  qualities  imaginable  by 
us,  to  be  perfectly  certain  that  Nature  possesses 
none  of  them,  we  naturally  ask  how  the  most 
credulous  school-boys  of  the  future,  or  the  most 
sentimental  lovers,  are  to  find  themselves  up- 
lifted by  contemplating  it  in  the  light  of  this  su- 
preme doctrine.  Will  Romeo  and  Juliet,  when 
making  eyes  at  the  stars  together,  find  their  pas- 
sion improved  by  reading  in  them  this  curt  state- 
ment, "You  can  think,  but  Nature  has  no  thoughts 
at  all" ;  or,  when  they  see  in  the  sunset  merely  the 
official  notice,  "  You  care  for  each  other,  but  Nat- 
ure cares  nothing  about  either  of  you";  or,  when 
rising  like  Augustine  and  Monica,  "still  higher  by 
inward  musing,"  they  see  the  notice  everywhere, 
"Nature  cares  nothing  about  anything"?  Lovers 
who,  under  these  conditions,  could  find  Nature 
"uplifting,"  would  be  nothing  so  much  as  a  couple 
of  sentimental  school-girls  ogling  a  bricked-up  win- 
dow and  trying  to  believe  that  it  was  the  draw- 

122 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

ing-master.  And  the  school-boys  of  the  future, 
who  are  to  be  educated  by  the  methods  of  en- 
lightened science,  how  are  they  likely  to  be  better 
off  than  the  lovers,  when  the  one  aim  of  their  ed- 
ucation is  to  lead  them  to  the  same  conclusion? 
If  there  is  no  God,  conscious  of  and  morally  re- 
sponsive to  men  or  boys — if  to  suppose  that  there 
is  is  merely  an  anthropistic  illusion — there  is  an 
end  of  the  matter.  Why  should  the  young  be 
put  to  so  much  trouble  in  learning  a  platitude 
which  could  be  explained  in  a  moment,  and  on 
which  no  philosopher  could  improve?  We  may 
well  ask  why,  and  Professor  Haeckel  can  give  no 
answer.  The  moment  we  cross-examine  him  as  to 
the  contents  of  his  religion  he  is  dumb.  And  so 
are  all  those  who  attempt  to  reason  like  him. 
Their  substitutes  for  theism  are  nonsense,  or  else 
they  are  theism  in  disguise.  Their  doctrine,  as 
stated  by  themselves,  merely  amounts  to  this: 
that  life  would  be  low,  "uncivilized,"  and  deserv- 
ing of  nothing  but  contempt  if  it  were  not  up- 
lifted by  an  ideal  contemplation  of  Nature;  and 
when  we  ask  what  this  contemplation  consists  of, 
we  find  that  it  consists  of  spending  half  our  time 
at  a  telescope,  merely  in  order  to  assure  ourselves 
that  there  is  no  man  in  the  moon. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Spencer  and  see  if  he  man- 
ages better.  In  two  ways  he  no  doubt  does.  He 
is,  in  the  first  place,  less  voluble  than  Professor 
Haeckel,  and  does  not,  therefore,  exhibit  quite  so 
plainly  the  inconsistency  of  his  practical  conclu- 

123 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

sions  with  his  theoretical  premises;  and  in  the 
second  place  he  gains  some  advantage  by  repre- 
senting the  unknowable  First  Cause  under  the 
positive  aspect  of  a  mystery  rather  than  as  a  mere 
negation.  For,  no  doubt  when  we  are  in  certain 
moods,  the  thought  of  a  mystery  enveloping  us, 
which  is  as  vast  as  it  is  impenetrable,  does  tend 
to  excite  in  us  some  quasi-religious  feeling.  It  is, 
however,  a  feeling  with  no  definite  content,  and 
vanishes  the  moment  we  attempt  to  associate  it 
with  practical  life,  as  Spencer  himself  shows  in  a 
passage  already  alluded  to.  "The  wise  man," 
he  says,  is  justified  "in  proclaiming  his  beliefs,  no 
matter  what  immediate  harm  may  come  of  it," 
because  "  it  is  not  for  nothing  that  they  have  been 
produced  in  him"  by  the  "inscrutable"  and  "un- 
known" First  Cause.  This  can  only  mean,  if  it 
means  anything,  that  the  unknown  First  Cause 
has,  with  a  definite  purpose,  produced  the  beliefs 
of  the  wise  man,  but  not  those  of  men  in  general ; 
and  has  also  produced  the  impulse  to  proclaim 
beliefs  which  are  unpopular,  but  has  not  produced 
the  impulse,  no  less  common,  to  conceal  them. 
If  these  things  can  be  known  about  it,  the  First 
Cause  is  not  unknowable.  If  they  cannot  be 
known,  the  First  Cause  is  morally  useless;  and 
that  its  character  cannot  be  known  or  even  guessed 
at  in  any  sense  whatever,  is  Spencer's  theoretical 
doctrine  from  his  first  volume  to  his  last.  It  is 
by  this  doctrine  alone  that  his  position  can  be 
seriously  tested;  and  while  his  failure  to  exhibit 

124 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

a  non-theistic  universe  as  an  object  of  religious 
emotion  is  no  less  complete  than  Professor  Haeck- 
el's  is,  it  is  even  more  instructive,  in  proportion 
as  his  thought  is  deeper. 

There  is  in  man,  says  Spencer,  a  natural  relig- 
ious impulse,  which  different  religions  have  provid- 
ed with  different  objects.  All  these  objects  have 
possessed  the  nature  of  Deities;  and  the  different 
Deities  have  been  invested  with  widely  different 
characters.  But  in  addition  to  the  characteris- 
tics in  respect  of  which  they  differ,  they  have  all 
been  invested  with  others,  which  are  in  their  es- 
sence identical.  These  others  are  of  a  highly  ab- 
stract kind,  such  as  infinity,  absoluteness,  self- 
existence,  and  so  forth,  which  elude  our  powers  of 
thought  in  proportion  as  we  try  to  grasp  them; 
and  these,  which  all  the  higher  religions  agree  in 
ascribing  to  their  object,  must,  he  says,  be  the 
true  Object  to  which  the  religious  emotion  points. 
In  other  words,  the  Object  of  religious  emotion 
has  for  its  distinguishing  and  essential  character- 
istic this — that  the  mind  of  man,  while  compelled 
to  acknowledge  its  existence,  is  incapable  of  form- 
ing reasonably  any  further  proposition  with  regard 
to  it. 

The  fundamental  fallacy  in  this  whole  argument 
is  as  follows.  The  object  of  any  civilized  religion 
must,  no  doubt,  be  unknowable  and  inscrutable,  in 
the  sense  that  it  is,  as  a  whole,  inexhaustible  by 
the  human  intellect,  which  merely  means  that, 
as  a  whole,  it  must  be  inconceivably  greater  than 

125 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

man.  But,  though  it  cannot  be  an  Object  of 
religion  for  us  unless  it  is  unknowable  as  a  whole, 
so  also — and  this  is  what  Spencer  overlooks — it 
can  as  little  be  an  Object  of  religion  for  us  unless 
it  is  held  to  be  knowable  in  part.  A  child  learn- 
ing its  alphabet  would  have  small  respect  for  its 
teacher  if  it  thought  that  the  teacher  knew  noth- 
ing but  A,  B,  C;  but  a  so-called  teacher  who  was 
unable  to  teach  it  anything  would  not  be  looked 
on  by  the  child  as  an  object  of  respect  at  all. 
With  the  Object  of  religion  the  case  is  just  the 
same.  Religion  does  not,  as  Spencer  says  it  does 
—thus  going  wrong  at  the  very  threshold  of  his 
philosophy  —  dwell  in  the  thought  of  an  Object 
about  which  we  can  know  nothing,  any  more  than 
in  the  thought  of  an  Object  about  which  we  can 
know  all.  It  dwells  in  the  thought  of  an  Object 
about  which  we  can  know  something.  The  un- 
knowable elements  in  the  Object  are  merely  a 
row  of  ciphers  which  indefinitely  multiply  the 
value  of  a  known  number  preceding  them,  but 
which,  without  such  a  number  preceding  them, 
would  have  no  meaning  whatever. 

How  a  truth  so  plain  as  this  could  have  escaped 
such  a  mind  as  Spencer's  is  a  question  which 
naturally  suggests  itself;  and  the  answer  is  not 
hard  to  find.  His  error  is  due  to  three  powerful 
causes.  One  is  the  fact  that  science,  as  at  present 
understood,  can  find  no  trace  of  any  knowable 
God  in  the  universe;  and  he  therefore  feels  him- 
self bound  to  deny  that  such  a  God  exists.  A 

126 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR   THEISM 

second  is  the  fact  that  he  recognizes  in  the  relig- 
ious emotion  of  which  such  a  God  has  been  always 
the  Object  hitherto  an  indispensable  factor  in  the 
mental  civilization  of  man.  A  third  is  the  fact 
that,  though  the  belief  in  this  God  is  rejected, 
the  emotion  of  which  He  was  once  the  imagined 
Object,  persists.  Conscious,  then,  of  the  emotion 
himself,  recognizing  that  it  is  not  idle — for  he  sees 
the  effects  which  it  has  hitherto  had  on  life — and 
yet  debarred  by  his  science  from  assigning  to  it 
any  intelligible  meaning,  he  manages  to  persuade 
himself  that  no  such  meaning  is  necessary.  But 
in  doing  this  he  is  doing  nothing  peculiar.  He 
is  merely  illustrating  that  quality  in  human  nature 
which  enables  a  man  to  retain,  and  even  to  cherish, 
an  illicit  desire  or  grudge  of  which  he  thinks  that 
he  has  completely  rid  himself.  The  meaning  of 
which  Spencer  fancies  that  he  has  defecated  the 
religious  emotion  by  pasting  the  word  "inscrut- 
able" over  its  only  intelligible  object,  he  really 
retains  in  his  consciousness  all  the  time.  He  has 
only  sunk  it  below  the  level  of  language.  He  has 
forced  it,  instead  of  speaking,  merely  to  hum  or 
mumble;  and  assured  by  these  comforting  noises 
that  it  still  remains  alive,  he  leaps  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  still  remains  efficacious.  He  totally  misses 
the  significance  of  what  he  has  really  done ;  and  all 
his  non-theistic  allies  are  in  the  same  position  as 
himself.  No  one  ever  lived  who  knew  better  than 
Spencer  the  importance  of  the  step  taken  in  human 
progress  when  first  the  anthropoid  animal  acquired 

127 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  gift  of  speech.  It  was  not  till  man  could  talk 
that  man  became  really  man.  Spencer  and  his 
school,  so  far  as  religion  is  concerned,  are  simply 
depriving  man  of  everything  that  speech  gave  him. 
The  religious  emotion  which  they  take  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  theism  is  merely  theism  reduced  to  its 
subrational  stage;  and  Spencer's  religion  of  the 
Inscrutable,  as  an  agent  in  elevating  life,  bears  the 
same  relation  to  religion  as  articulate  theism  gives 
it  to  us,  that  the  subhuman  creature  who  could  not 
talk  bears  to  the  man  who  can.  In  short,  if  we 
wish  to  show  the  logical  necessity  of  theism  for  any 
development  of  life  that  can  be  called  mentally  civ- 
ilized, we  need  merely  examine  the  logical  failures 
of  those  who  attempt  to  give  us  the  elements  of  such 
a  civilization  without  it. 

If,  however,  the  reader  is  not  convinced  already 
that  the  current  substitutes  for  theism,  as  a  practi- 
cal factor  in  civilization,  are  utterly  worthless  for 
the  purpose  to  which  it  is  proposed  to  apply  them, 
we  can  turn  to  further  evidence  of  a  kind  more  di- 
rect still.  We  can  turn  to  certain  direct  admis- 
sions, full  of  psychological  suggestion,  on  the  part 
of  scientific  thinkers  themselves. 

Of  such  admissions,  a  highly  interesting  example 
is  to  be  found  in  Darwin's  statement  that  "his 
power  of  enjoying  music  diminished  gradually  as 
he  acquired  more  and  more  the  faculty  of  exact 
research  and  analytical  study."  Here  is  a  fact 
quite  as  worthy  of  note  as  any  illuminating  ex- 
periment performed  in  a  chemical  laboratory;  and 

128 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

its  importance  is  enhanced  by  an  admission  of  the 
same  kind  on  the  part  of  another  thinker  belonging 
to  Darwin's  school. 

The  thinker  in  question  is  Herbert  Spencer 
himself,  who  confesses  broadly  in  his  posthumous 
Autobiography  that  the  higher  pleasures  of  Life 
all  tend  to  disappear  in  proportion  as  we  become 
conscious  of  their  scientific  analysis.  And  to  these 
admissions  we  are  able  to  add  another,  which  is 
yet  more  instructive  and  precise.  This  also  is  to 
be  found  in  the  same  work,  and  is  contained  in 
the  passage  with  which  the  Autobiography  ends. 
Spencer  began,  as  his  life  drew  to  a  close,  to  feel  a 
kindness,  wanting  to  him  in  his  earlier  years, 
towards  those  religions  whose  Object  is  a  Personal 
Deity,  and  on  which  the  work  of  his  life  had  been 
practically  one  long  attack.  And  the  reason  of  this 
change  of  feeling  was,  he  says,  that  he  became  con- 
scious of  a  "need,"  which  his  own  religion  of  the 
inscrutable  was  insufficient  to  satisfy,  and  at  the 
satisfaction  of  which  the  theistic  religions  aimed. 
This  admission  is  striking  enough  as  it  stands,  but 
he  gives  it,  in  the  passage  that  follows,  a  meaning 
yet  more  pointed.  Of  all  the  saddening  reflections 
which  the  approach  of  death  suggested  to  him,  the 
most  saddening,  he  says,  was  the  reflection  that 
there  might,  at  the  back  of  the  universe,  be  no 
consciousness  at  all,  but  merely  a  species  of  groping 
protoplasmic  mind,  which  breaks  into  transitory 
consciousness  in  feeble  units  like  ourselves.  What 
is  this  but  an  admission  on  the  part  of  that  very 

129 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

thinker  who  has  been  foremost  in  representing  be- 
lief in  any  knowable  God  as  superfluous,  that  belief 
in  a  God  of  this  precise  kind  is  the  fundamental 
thing  that  man  requires  for  his  nutriment,  and  that 
its  place  can  never  be  taken  by  any  blind  recogni- 
tion of  a  Power  which  science  must  always  leave  a 
featureless  and  inscrutable  mystery  ? 

Whether,  then,  the  religion  of  theism  be  true,  or 
whether  it  be  absolutely  false,  we  have  seen  by  an 
analysis  of  its  practical  effects  on  life,  and  also  by 
the  failures  and  admissions  of  those  thinkers  who 
reject  it,  that  civilized  human  life  loses  all  meaning 
without  it,  and  that  no  suggestible  substitute  is 
able  to  take  its  place.  So  far,  then,  as  the  pres- 
ent portion  of  our  argument  is  concerned,  we  may 
sum  up  the  situation  thus.  If  we  take  man  as 
a  thinking  and  feeling  animal,  of  whose  nature 
and  conduct  science,  as  at  present  interpreted  can 
physically  and  philosophically  offer  us  a  complete 
explanation,  and  then  watch  him  as  his  civilization 
develops,  we  shall  see  that  a  something  emerges, 
alike  in  his  will  and  in  his  feelings,  which  logically 
implies,  with  regard  to  his  developed  nature,  prop- 
ositions wholly  inconsistent  with  the  scientific  ac- 
count of  his  origin ;  and  these,  when  their  content 
is  analyzed,  inevitably  result  in  a  religion  having 
for  its  object  a  conscious  and  responsive  Deity, 
and  a  free  personality  on  man's  side  for  its  sub- 
ject, capable  of  some  reasonable  communion  with 
the  supreme  principle  which  is  its  source. 

Thus,  in  so  far  as  we  attribute  any  objective 
130 


SUBSTITUTES    FOR    THEISM 

validity  to  that  general  judgment  of  all  civilized 
humanity,  which  pronounces  civilization  to  be  in- 
contestably  superior  to  savagery,  and  will  not  for 
a  moment  allow  itself  to  be  called  in  question,  we 
are  attributing  to  religious  belief  a  validity  of  the 
same  kind,  and  are  thus  invoking  civilization  in 
its  corporate  capacity  as  a  world  witness  against 
science,  as  at  present  understood  and  interpreted. 
Science,  however,  still  remains  where  it  was.  For 
anything  we  have  seen  thus  far  its  negations  are 
as  obstinate  as  ever.  We  cannot,  as  Spencer  says, 
call  its  conclusions  in  question  without  calling  in 
question  all  definite  knowledge  likewise;  and  if  we 
can  only  qualify  the  definite  negations  of  science 
by  pitting  against  them  the  affirmations  implicit  in 
civilization,  we  are  still  confronted  by  the  old  intel- 
lectual deadlock.  We  have  now  to  inquire  whether 
there  does  not  exist  some  means,  less  hopeless  than 
the  frontal  attacks  of  the  clerical  critics  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  philosophical  idealists  on  the 
other,  by  which,  accepting  science  in  all  its  present 
integrity,  we  may  gradually  deprive  its  opposition 
of  all  practical  import. 


BOOK    III 


CURRENT   SCIENCE    RECRITICISED    BY   MEANS 
OF   ITS   OWN    PRINCIPLES 

OF  the  two  direct  methods  of  attacking  or  criti- 
cising science  on  which  modern  apologists  of  relig- 
ion have  thus  far  mainly  relied,  one  aims — this  was 
shown  in  our  opening  chapters — at  contesting  the 
details  of  the  scientific  scheme ;  while  the  other,  ac- 
cepting it  as  complete  within  its  own  limits,  aims 
at  showing  that,  however  complete,  it  has  very 
little  significance.  How  utterly  both  these  methods 
fail  to  attain  their  object,  we  have  seen  already, 
and  I  only  refer  to  them  now  for  the  sake  of  con- 
trasting them  with  the  method  which  we  will  here 
follow  instead  of  them.  Unlike  them,  this  method 
begins,  not  with  seeking,  wherever  such  a  course 
seems  possible,  to  question  the  truth  or  importance 
of  what  science  claims  to  have  proved,  but  with 
accepting  from  it  all  its  doctrines  at  its  own  full 
valuation  of  them,  with  recognizing  its  facts,  with 
indorsing  and  emphasizing  its  principles,  and  forc- 
ing science  itself  to  adhere  rigorously  to  both. 

In  this  method  there  is  nothing  radically  new. 
Just  as  science,  in  Spencer's  words,  is  "common 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

knowledge  developed,"  so  is  this  method  a  com- 
mon method  developed  by  being  applied  with  an 
accuracy  and  system  in  which  hitherto  it  has  been 
largely  wanting.  Its  nature,  and  the  class  of  results 
likely  to  attend  its  use,  may  be  illustrated  by  a 
particular  application  of  it  which  has  often  been 
made  already,  and  to  which  the  reader  has  been 
referred  in  one  of  our  earlier  chapters. 

This  consists  of  a  criticism  of  the  cruder  forms 
of  materialism,  which,  by  accepting  and  rigidly  in- 
sisting on  the  principles  of  that  materialism  itself, 
does  not,  indeed,  refute  it  in  the  sense  of  showing 
that  it  is  wholly  false,  but  compels  it  to  break  its 
shell  and  expand  into  something  different,  as  the 
contents  of  an  egg  do  when  they  give  birth  to  a 
chicken.  The  argument  involved  is  this.  The 
materialist's  distinctive  doctrine  is  that  mind  is  the 
product  of  matter;  and  many  materialists  have 
flattered  themselves  that  they  were  destroying  re- 
ligion at  its  roots  by  degrading  mind  to  the  level  of 
an  origin  that  was  not  mental.  Their  position  has 
been  attacked  in  a  great  variety  of  ways,  the  object 
of  all  of  which  was  to  discredit  the  bare  idea  that  a 
thing  like  matter  could  develop  into  a  thing  like 
mind.  But  the  desired  conclusion  can  be  reached 
in  a  way  much  simpler  by  accepting  the  idea  as 
sound  instead  of  trying  to  discredit  it,  and  then  by 
rigorously  applying  to  it  the  principles  of  the  ma- 
terialists themselves,  force  it  to  unfold  implications 
which  the  materialists  do  not  suspect.  For  the 
qualities  of  the  mind,  as  conscious  experience  gives 

136 


SCIENCE    SELF-CRITICISED 

them  to  us,  remain  what  they  always  were,  be 
their  origin  what  it  may ;  and  in  proportion  as  it  is 
rigorously  maintained  that  nothing  exists  in  mind 
— no  feeling,  no  process  of  reason,  no  hope,  no  vital 
energy — the  entire  constituents  of  which  did  not 
pre-exist  in  matter,  it  must  follow  that  matter  it- 
self contains  all  the  qualities  of  mind.  It  is  true 
that,  by  such  an  argument,  we  reach  neither  of 
those  special  conclusions — that  the  individual  mind 
is  immortal  and  is  a  free  agent  —  which  theism 
desires  to  vindicate ;  but  we  entirely  destroy  the  ar- 
gument on  which  materialism,  as  such,  relies,  and 
to  which  most  apologists  still  confine  their  atten- 
tion. We  do  not  refute  the  doctrine  that  mind 
originates  in  matter,  but  we  simply  enlarge  our 
conception  of  what  the  thing  called  matter  is ;  and 
thus  by  a  use  of  the  materialist's  own  data,  we  force 
materialism  to  destroy,  or  rather  to  transcend,  it- 
self. 

The  above  argument,  which  has  been  forcibly 
urged  by  Spencer,  would,  if  it  stood  alone,  certainly 
be  barren  enough.  It  would  give  us  the  universe 
as  mind  in  some  sense  or  other,  and  what  we  call 
matter  as  a  mere  sign  of  its  processes;  but  of  the 
character  of  the  cosmic  mind — of  mind,  to  quote 
Spencer's  words,  as  conditioned  otherwise  than  in 
ourselves — it  would  tell  us  nothing.  It  will,  how- 
ever, give  the  reader  some  rough  idea  of  a  method 
which  we  will  presently  begin  to  apply  in  a  more 
detailed  and  penetrating  way.  But  before  doing 
this,  let  us  review  our  present  position,  in  order  to 

i37 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

get  some  tolerably  clear  idea  of  the  more  immediate 
results  at  which  we  must  elect  to  aim. 

We  have,  then,  three  fundamental  beliefs — the 
beliefs  in  God,  freedom,  and  immortality — to  which 
science,  as  at  present  understood,  opposes  a  blank 
negation ;  and  what  here  concerns  us  is  the  means 
by  which  this  opposition  may  be  annulled.  Now 
these  beliefs,  as  we  have  seen,  are  so  closely  con- 
nected that  no  one  of  them,  without  the  others, 
would  be  of  much  practical  use  to  us.  But  when 
they  are  considered  not  as  beliefs  to  be  acted  on,  but 
as  standing  for  speculative  propositions  the  truth  of 
which  requires  to  be  established,  the  belief  in  God 
has,  for  one  reason  at  all  events,  a  claim  to  be  dealt 
with  apart  from  the  two  others,  and  before  them. 
This  reason  is  that  God  stands  for  a  purpose  in  the 
universe,  which  is  in  some  measure  intelligible  to 
ourselves,  which  we  recognize  as  supremely  good, 
and  in  which,  by  imagination  at  least,  we  are  ca- 
pable ourselves  of  sharing  like  momentary  specta- 
tors of  a  festival  to  which  we  were  not  invited ;  and 
if  we  can  establish  the  fact  that  such  a  purpose 
exists,  we  shall  not  merely  have  vindicated  the 
particular  belief  in  question,  but  we  shall  also  have 
established  a  presumption,  which  else  would  be 
wholly  wanting,  in  favor  of  the  two  others.  For, 
although,  if  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  supposed 
to  have  no  purpose  of  a  kind  presentable  in  terms 
of  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  it  might  be  hard 
even  to  state  a  case  for  our  own  freedom  and  im- 
mortality in  the  face  of  a  science  which  seems  to 

138 


SCIENCE    SELF-CRITICISED 

deny  both,  yet  if  once  it  can  be  shown  that  a  pur- 
pose of  the  kind  in  question  pervades  the  universe, 
and  is  the  principle  to  which  we  owe  our  own 
existence,  the  situation  in  this  respect  greatly 
changes  its  character.  The  assumption  that  our 
lives  cannot  be  morally  meaningless  —  that  they 
must  have  some  moral  connection  with  the  larger 
life  around  them — an  assumption  otherwise  arbi- 
trary— acquires  the  strongest  likelihood ;  and  if  the 
counter-demonstrations  of  science  can,  even  if  not 
refuted  formally,  be  made  to  lose  something  of  their 
seemingly  overwhelming  authority,  the  likelihood 
of  the  assumption  may  be  practically  sufficient  to 
overbear  them. 

In  re-examining  science,  then,  as  at  present  under- 
stood and  interpreted,  we  will  begin  with  confining 
our  attention  to  its  negation  of  the  belief  in  God,  or, 
in  other  words,  to  its  contention  that  the  universe, 
taken  as  a  whole,  gives  us  no  grounds  for  believing, 
and  indeed  forbids  us  to  believe,  that  there  is  at  the 
back  of  it  any  thought,  feeling,  or  purpose,  con- 
gruous with  our  own  consciousness,  and  capable  of 
being  expressed  in  terms  of  it. 

We  shall  find  that  the  arguments  on  which  this 
negation  rests  only  require  to  be  completed,  and 
they  will  react  on  themselves,  presenting  us  with  a 
conclusion  diametrically  opposed  to  that  in  which, 
by  such  thinkers  as  Darwin,  Huxley,  Spencer,  and 
Professor  Haeckel,  they  have  hitherto  been  sup- 
posed to  issue. 


II 

ALL   THAT   IS,  IMPLICIT   IN    ALL   THAT   WAS 

REMEMBERING,  then,  that  when  we  here  speak  of 
science,  we  mean  science  as  generally  understood 
by  its  exponents  at  the  present  day,  and  as  thus 
claiming  all  knowable  things  for  its  province,  let 
us  start  with  reflecting  on  a  very  familiar  principle 
which  it  necessarily  assumes  as  its  basis,  and  which 
it  verifies  as  a  last  conclusion.  I  refer  to  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  laws  of  Nature  are  uniform,  or  that 
the  same  causes  have  always  the  same  effects. 
Science  is  primarily,  as  Spencer  says,  "prevision"; 
but  the  certainty  of  its  methods  being  attested  by 
its  fulfilled  predictions,  it  turns  from  the  future  to 
the  past,  and  argues  from  effects  to  causes,  with  a 
confidence  equal  to  that  with  which  it  argues  from 
causes  to  effects. 

Of  this  certainty  of  science,  whether  looking 
before  or  after,  the  most  striking  illustrations  are 
those  afforded  us  by  astronomy,  partly  because  of 
the  magnitude  of  the  phenomena  involved,  but 
mainly  because  they  happen  to  be  exceptionally 
susceptible  of  isolation.  In  contrast  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  astronomy  stand  those  of  the  weather. 

140 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

These  cannot  be  isolated  at  all;  they  can  only  be 
observed  in  part ;  and,  consequently,  while  we  are 
able  from  the  position  of  the  stars  to-night  to  tell 
the  position  which  they  occupied  in  the  days  of 
Pharaoh,  we  are  unable  to  tell  from  the  state  of 
the  weather  on  Monday  what  it  was  on  the  Tues- 
day previous,  or  what  it  will  be  on  the  Sunday 
following.  Hence,  most  people,  till  very  lately — 
and  their  opinion  is  not  yet  extinct — looked  on  the 
weather  as  somehow  an  affair  of  chance,  though 
they  recognized  the  movements  of  the  quicksilver 
by  which  its  changes  were  registered  as  belonging 
to  the  domain  of  rigid  natural  law.  But  no  one  of 
education  now  any  longer  doubts  that  the  showers 
or  fog  of  to-day  are  merely  an  incident  in  a  process 
which  has  been  going  on  continuously  ever  since 
weather  began,  and  will  go  on  continuously  till 
weather  of  all  kinds  ends.  And  the  same  thing 
holds  good  of  all  phenomena  whatsoever.  A  defi- 
nite past  and  future  is  inexorably  involved  in  each 
of  them,  just  as  they  are  in  the  phenomena  of  the 
heavenly  bodies;  and  if  only  our  intelligence  were 
such  that  we  were  able  to  grasp  in  its  entirety  the 
physical  condition  of  the  universe  at  any  given 
moment,  we  could  read  in  that  moment  the  whole 
of  its  past  and  future.  It  is,  indeed,  by  an  ap- 
proximation to  this  impossible  feat  that  the  whole 
modern  system  of  evolutionary  science  has  been 
elaborated.  We  have  learned  and  verified  in  num- 
berless different  ways  the  fact  that  the  tendency  of 
causes  is  to  produce  a  multiplication  of  effects ;  and 

141 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

conversely  that  the  explanation  of  effects  is  to  be 
sought  for  in  a  diminution  of  causes.  In  this  way 
the  complexities  of  the  universe  as  it  now  is,  and 
more  particularly  those  of  the  earth  and  the  solar 
system,  are  traced  back  step  by  step  to  simpler  and 
ever  simpler  antecedents,  till  we  reach  at  last  a 
diffused  vapor  or  nebula,  which  Spencer  takes  as  his 
starting-point,  and  with  which  we  may  here  end. 

Everything  that  is,  then,  implies  everything  that 
has  gone  before,  just  as  the  position  of  the  wheels 
of  a  clock  now  imply  their  position  an  hour  or 
twelve  hours  ago.  Their  present  position  is  what 
it  is,  and  is  not  anything  else.  Their  past  position 
was  something  equally  definite,  and  could  not  by 
any  possibility  have  been  anything  else  either. 
Let  us  take  an  illustration  of  a  slightly  more  com- 
plicated kind.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  number  of 
billiard-balls  have  been  all  set  in  motion  by  the 
single  stroke  of  a  cue,  and  continue,  we  will  say, 
for  a  minute  forming  themselves  into  different 
figures.  From  any  one  change  in  their  grouping 
taking  place  in  any  one  second,  a  spectator  possess- 
ed of  complete  knowledge  of  the  circumstances, 
including  of  course  the  condition  of  the  bed  of  the 
billiard-table  and  the  cushions,  would  be  able  to 
infer  their  position  at  any  one  of  the  seconds  pre- 
ceding it,  till  he  reached  their  original  collocation, 
and  the  strength  of  the  blow  that  started  them.  To 
deny  this  is,  in  Huxley's  words,  "to  deny  science." 
It  is  more.  It  is  to  deny  the  possibility  of  any 
trustworthy  inference  whatsoever.  It  is  to  assert 

142 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

that,  though  three  and  three  generally  make  up  six, 
occasions  constantly  occur  when  three  and  three 
make  up  twenty. 

To  this  argument,  however,  it  may  very  possibly 
be  objected  that  though  three  and  three  must  al- 
ways make  up  six,  yet  six  need  not  always  be  made 
up  of  three  and  three.  It  may  be  made  up  of  one 
and  five,  or  it  may  be  made  up  of  two  and  four. 
Now  of  an  abstract  six,  this  is  no  doubt  perfectly 
true ;  but  if  we  consider  the  assumption  which  was 
just  now  emphatically  made — namely,  that  all  the 
circumstances  at  any  given  moment  were  known — 
it  is  absolutely  false  of  any  six  in  the  concrete.  We 
are  dealing  here  not  with  abstractions,  but  with 
facts;  and  we  may  compare  the  facts  of  any  par- 
ticular case  to  a  given  number  of  counters  each 
marked  with  a  numeral  and  lying  together  on  a  tray. 
We  will  suppose,  then,  that  there  are  eighteen  coun- 
ters, bearing  the  numbers  from  one  to  nine  in  dupli- 
cate, and  that  a  girl  and  a  boy  have  these  eighteen 
counters  before  them.  The  girl  takes  up  two, 
which  together  give  the  number  six,  and  challenges 
the  boy  to  tell  her  what  the  two  counters  are.  It 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  just  as  possible,  theoretically, 
that  they  are  a  one  and  a  five,  or  else  a  two  and  a 
four,  as  it  is  that  they  are  two  threes ;  but  the  boy 
has  only  to  examine  the  counters  which  are  lying 
on  the  tray  still,  and  if  he  finds  that  both  the  ones, 
both  the  twos,  and  both  the  fives  are  among  them, 
he  will  know  that  the  girl's  six  must  be  made  up  of 
the  two  threes,  and  could  not  possibly  be  made  up 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  anything  else.  The  boy  and  the  counters  he  is 
dealing  with  merely  represent  science  as  acquiring 
in  any  given  case,  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
and  the  necessary  character  of  the  facts  corre- 
sponding to  its  inevitable  inferences. 

And  now  from  counters,  clocks,  and  moving 
billiard-balls,  let  us  turn  to  the  phenomenon  which 
really  concerns  us  here.  This  is  the  human  or- 
ganism, or  at  all  events  the  essential  parts  of  it, 
which  collectively  are  for  science  identical  with  the 
entire  man,  in  the  sense  that  every  fact  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  consciousness  is  another  side  or  aspect 
of  the  action  of  these  essential  parts,  just  as  words 
being  read  out  from  a  telegraphic  tape  are  another 
side  or  aspect  of  the  same  words  printed. 

We  will,  then,  take  the  organism  —  or,  for  our 
present  purpose,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  say  the 
brain — of  some  highly  civilized  man  at  some  par- 
ticular moment.  Let  us  take  the  brain  of  Augus- 
tine when  he  was  writing  the  famous  sentence, 
"  Thou  hast  made  us  for  thyself,  and  we  are  restless 
until  we  find  rest  in  thee. "  Such  a  brain,  according 
to  science,  were  we  able  to  observe  its  secrets,  would 
exhibit  in  the  layers  of  the  cortex — in  the  pyramidal 
layer  especially — a  cellular  or  molecular  patterning 
of  a  kind  so  distinct  and  peculiar  that  the  ejacula- 
tion of  the  saint  could  be  read  in  it  by  the  ideal 
scientific  spectator,  as  surely  as  an  Egyptian  in- 
scription is  read  by  an  instructed  scholar. 

Such  being  the  case,  then,  the  particular  brain 
selected  by  us  may  be  compared  at  the  moment 

144 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

in  question  to  a  figure  formed  by  our  billiard- 
balls;  and,  like  the  billiard-balls,  its  figure  at  the 
moment  in  question  must  have  been  preceded  by 
another  no  less  definite,  that  other  by  a  third,  and 
so  on  in  an  endless  series.  Let  us  now  translate 
this  fact  into  another  pictorial  symbol  of  a  rather 
more  elaborate,  but  still  of  a  simple,  kind.  Let  us 
represent  the  selected  brain  at  any  selected  moment 
as  a  small,  circular  mosaic,  tessellated  into  some 
inscription,  and  placed  at  the  top  of  a  long,  porous 
tube,  like  a  wad  at  the  top  of  a  gun-barrel;  and 
directly  underneath  this  let  us  suppose  that  there 
is  another  mosaic,  representing  the  brain  as  it  was 
at  the  moment  previous,  and  others  again  under 
this,  each  of  which  represents  similarly  the  molec- 
ular pattern  that  was  necessary  to  produce  its 
successor.  The  contents  of  our  tube,  then,  will 
thus  be  a  piece  of  the  universe,  isolated  like  a 
portion  of  some  infinitely  large  cheese,  into  which 
has  been  thrust  an  infinitely  long  cheese-taster; 
and  this  portion  will  consist  of  a  countless  series 
of  sections,  any  one  of  which  we  will  suppose  that 
we  could  take  out  and  examine. 

Now  we  shall,  if  we  go  backward  in  the  scale 
of  time,  have  only  to  take  out  a  few  sections  as 
specimens,  in  order  to  see  that,  as  they  follow 
each  other,  they  gradually  change  their  character. 
When,  let  us  say,  we  have  gone  back  fifty  years, 
we  shall  find  that  they  are  sections  no  longer  of 
the  brain  with  which  we  set  out.  They  will  be 
circles  of  embryonic  matter,  and  the  matter  of  some 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

maternal  uterus;  and  if  we  assume,  as  for  sim- 
plicity's sake  we  will  do,  that  the  human  being 
has  only  one  line  of  ancestors,  we  shall  presently 
come  to  sections  representing,  in  unbroken  se- 
quence, the  brains  of  the  mother  and  all  her  human 
progenitors,  then  the  brains  of  a  series  of  lower 
animals,  then  a  globule  of  protoplasm,  then  an 
arrangement  of  certain  inorganic  carbonates,  and 
finally  (for  we  will  end  here),  a  little  portion  of  the 
so-called  primal  nebula.  But  with  regard  to  each 
section  of  mosaic  we  must  bear  in  mind  this — that 
while  those  at  the  top,  representing  human  brains, 
will  be  tessellated  into  intelligible  words  such  as 
those  just  quoted  from  Augustine,  and  while  as 
we  descend  through  the  animals  to  protoplasm  and 
inorganic  substances,  the  tesseras  will  form  patterns 
which  for  us  are  wholly  meaningless,  yet  the  pat- 
terning in  every  case  is  equally  specific  and  in- 
evitable, implying  the  pattern  above  it,  implied  in 
that  below;  so  that  any  one  possessing  complete 
scientific  knowledge  could,  by  examining  one  of 
them,  reconstruct  the  entire  series.1 

Our  pictorial  symbol  as  it  stands,  however,  is 
too  crude  for  our  present  purposes.  It  represents 
the  antecedents  of  the  brain  with  which  we  are 
dealing  as  though  they  constituted  a  process  shut 
up  in  itself.  But  they  do  not. ,  We  shall  find  that, 

1  Huxley,  in  order  to  illustrate  a  somewhat  different  point, 
compared  the  antecedents  of  a  single  life  to  the  sucker  of  a 
strawberry  plant,  whose  existence  reached  hack  to  the  begin- 
ning of  organic  evolution. 

146 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

in  reality,  the  tesserae  of  our  successive  mosaics 
not  only  differ  from  one  another  because  their 
tesserae  change  their  places,  but  because  the  tesserae 
themselves  are  constantly  changing  also,  some 
escaping  through  the  porous  sides  of  our  tube, 
others  entering  in  and  taking  their  places  from 
without.  We  must,  therefore,  if  we  would  make 
our  present  symbol  complete,  suppose  that  our 
small  tube  of  sections  stands  in  another  which  is 
enormous,  and  which  contains  in  sections  corre- 
sponding to  them  the  entire  substance  of  the  uni- 
verse at  different  seconds  of  time.  It  need  hardly 
be  said  that  what  holds  good  of  the  small  sections 
will  hold  good  of  the  larger  also;  that  the  mosaic 
pattern  of  the  universe,  as  each  larger  section  ex- 
hibits it,  will  imply  preceding  patterns  of  a  kind 
equally  definite ;  and  that  the  patterns  of  the  little 
sections  —  the  antecedents  of  a  single  brain  —  are 
merely  parts  of  the  pattern  of  the  larger  sections 
surrounding  them.  We  may,  therefore,  dispense 
with  our  small  tube  as  a  superfluity ;  and  instead  of 
it,  we  will  suppose  that,  for  the  purpose  of  identi- 
fying its  contents,  we  enclose  them  on  each  large 
section  in  a  circle  of  red  ink.  Thus,  in  considering 
the  antecedents  of  whatever  brain  may  be  in  ques- 
tion, we  must  no  longer  suppose  ourselves  to  be 
looking  for  them  in  the  small  sections  taken  by 
themselves.  We  must  suppose  ourselves  to  be 
looking  for  them  in  the  large  sections,  on  which 
we  shall  find  them  marked  like  a  town  on  a  large 
map. 

i47 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

And  now  let  us  take  any  one  of  these  larger  sec- 
tions we  please,  and  consider  for  a  moment  what 
its  details  will  teach  us.  The  section  is  covered 
with  a  specific  patterning,  of  which  part  is  inside 
our  red  circle  and  the  rest  outside  it.  We  have 
seen  that  this  patterning,  as  a  whole,  is  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  result  of  the  patterning  that  went 
be-fore  it,  and  the  absolutely  necessary  implication 
of  the  patterning  that  will  come  after  it;  so  that 
any  two  of  these  might  be  arrived  at  by  a  study  of 
the  third.  We  have  now  to  reflect  on  the  fact  that 
within  each  section  itself  there  is  the  same  con- 
nection between  the  various  parts  of  its  patterning 
that  there  is  between  its  patterning  as  a  whole  and 
the  patternings  which  precede  and  follow  it.  That 
is  to  say,  any  one  whose  scientific  knowledge  was 
complete  could,  by  a  study  of  the  patterning  inside 
the  red  circle,  know  the  whole  of  the  patterning 
outside ;  and  conversely,  by  a  study  of  the  pattern- 
ing outside,  might  know  the  patterning  inside  with 
the  same  absolute  certainty.  This  last  is  the  fact 
that  most  concerns  us  here;  so  it  will  be  necessary 
to  present  it  to  the  reader  with  as  much  precision 
as  possible. 

The  whole  of  the  patterning,  inside  the  red  circle 
and  outside,  is,  we  have  been  supposing,  made  up 
of  a  number  of  tesserae,  which  are  being  constantly 
shuffled  about  and  rearranged  on  a  plane  surface. 
Let  us  now  make  a  few  suppositions  more — firstly, 
that  the  tesserae  are  each  of  them  marked  with  a 
letter,  the  patternings  thus  consisting  of  the  ways 

148 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

in  which  the  letters  are  arranged ;  secondly,  so  as  to 
make  our  conception  more  easily  manageable,  that 
our  patterned  section  is  a  section  of  the  solar 
system  only,  and  that  our  tesserae  are  twenty-six 
in  number,  each  marked  with  one  letter  of  the 
alphabet;  thirdly,  that  wherever  the  letters  are  so 
grouped  that  no  contiguous  letters  make  up  an 
intelligible  word,  we  have  no  brain  or  any  of  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness,  and  that  brain  and 
consciousness  only  come  into  existence  where  the 
letters  are  juxtaposed  so  that  an  intelligible  word 
results  from  them ;  and  finally,  let  us  suppose  that 
the  section  with  which  we  are  dealing  is  a  section 
of  the  solar  system  in  which  the  sole  conscious 
portion  is  the  brain  of  Augustine  when  he  was 
writing  his  sentence  about  God,  this  portion  being 
that  which  is  enclosed  within  our  colored  circle. 

The  fact  which  I  desire  to  impress  on  the  read- 
er's attention  is  that,  if  the  contents  of  the  colored 
circle  were  entirely  covered  over  with  a  wafer, 
an  ideal  scientific  observer  could  infallibly  tell  what 
they  were  by  merely  examining  the  letters  outside 
the  circumference. 

To  explain  in  detail  how  such  a  conclusion  would 
be  reached  by  him  would  of  course  be  impossible 
with  the  aid  of  the  rough  symbols  we  are  using. 
It  is  enough  to  point  out  that  to  reach  it  is  theoret- 
ically practicable.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  circle 
which  contains  Augustine's  brain  is  filled  up  with 
the  letters  G,  O,  D,  and  that  these  represent  his 
consciousness  at  the  special  moment  in  question, 
ii  149 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

These  letters  are  covered,  and  our  observer  cannot 
see  them;  but  on  carefully  going  over  the  others 
which  remain  open  to  his  inspection,  he  finds  that 
a  G,  an  O,  and  a  D,  are  missing.  They  are  not 
outside  the  circle ;  they  must  therefore  be  inside  it. 
And  if  it  be  objected  that,  though  so  much  might 
be  known  in  this  way,  it  would  yet  remain  un- 
certain whether  the  three  letters  in  question  were 
not  arranged  in  the  order  D,  O,  G,  instead  of  the 
order  G,  O,  D  (as  they  might  have  been  in  the 
brain  of  the  sporting  prelate  Synesius),  the  answer  is 
hardly  less  simple.  We  are  assuming  that  our  ob- 
server is  a  man  whose  direct  knowledge  with  regard 
to  all  the  tesseras,  except  those  within  the  circle,  is 
complete;  and  such  knowledge  will  include,  not 
only  a  knowledge  of  how  the  tesserae  are  arranged 
in  the  present  section,  but  also  a  knowledge  of  their 
arrangement  in  the  section  immediately  preceding 
it.  Such  being  the  case,  he  will  have  noted  that  in 
the  preceding  section  the  three  tesserae  bearing 
the  letters  D,  G,  O,  lying,  as  they  necessarily  must 
have  been,  just  outside  the  circle,  were  so  placed 
that  any  further  movement  of  the  whole  could,  if 
it  pushed  them  inside  the  circle  at  all,  only  have 
pushed  them  in  in  the  order  G,  O,  D;  and  thus 
the  inference  as  to  the  contents  of  the  circle  is 
complete.  We  read  what  is  inside  it  by  a  study 
of  what  is  outside,  just  certainly  as  an  astronomer, 
in  the  movements  of  seen  planets,  reads  the  exist- 
ence and  position  of  a  planet  that  has  been  seen  by 
nobody. 

150 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

And  now  let  us  put  together  the  conclusions 
which  by  this  time  we  have  arrived  at.  They  may 
be  expressed  thus.  Let  us  take  two  patterned 
sections  of  the  matter  of  the  solar  system.  The 
first  shall  be  the  section  which  we  have  been  just 
considering.  In  this  we  have  the  solar  system 
itself,  with  the  brain  of  Augustine  contained  in  our 
red  circle,  as  a  part  of  it.  The  second  shall  be  a 
section,  not  of  the  solar  system  at  all,  but  of  the 
drifting  nebula  out  of  which  it  was  ultimately 
evolved;  and  the  contents  of  the  red  circle  simi- 
larly will  be  a  section,  not  of  a  brain,  but  of  some- 
thing not  specifically  different  from  the  patterned 
surface  external  to  it.  With  regard,  then,  to  these 
sections,  the  conclusions  we  have  arrived  at  are  as 
follows : 

Firstly,  each,  taken  as  a  whole,  implies,  and  is 
implied  by,  the  other.  The  patterning  in  section 
number  i,  representing  the  solar  system,  implies 
the  exact  patterning  in  section  number  2,  repre- 
senting the  primal  nebula,  and  is  in  its  turn  implied 
by  it,  as  the  butterfly  implies  the  caterpillar,  and 
as  the  caterpillar  implies  the  butterfly.  For  our 
present  purpose,  each  is  the  precise  equivalent  of 
the  other. 

Secondly,  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  pattern- 
ings  within  the  two  red  circles.  The  patterning 
of  the  brain  of  Augustine,  in  section  number  i, 
implies  the  patterning  of  the  little  disk  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  primal  nebula  contained  in  the  red 
circle  in  section  number  2. 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Thirdly,  in  each  section,  the  patterning  outside 
the  red  circle  is  the  necessary,  the  exact,  though 
the  indirect,  equivalent  of  the  patterning  inside. 

And  now  we  may  simplify  these  conclusions 
further.  Of  section  number  i,  we  need  keep  the 
part  only  which  represents  the  brain  of  Augustine, 
when  he  wrote  the  words,  "We  are  restless  until 
we  find  rest  in  Thee."  And  this,  too,  we  need  keep 
for  no  more  than  a  moment  till  we  have  again 
noted  the  fact  that  it  has  its  precise  equivalent  in 
the  patterning  inside  the  red  circle  on  the  section 
of  the  primal  nebula.  The  latter,  then,  we  may 
take  in  place  of  the  former;  and  we  may  say  that 
by  anticipation  and  implication  it  is  the  brain  of 
Augustine  itself.  And  here  we  reach  at  last  the 
final  conclusion  aimed  at.  Just  as  this  disk  of 
nebula  inside  the  red  circle  is  the  equivalent  of  the 
brain  of  Augustine,  so  is  the  rest  of  the  nebula  the 
equivalent  of  this  disk.  It  is  equivalent  to  it  in 
the  following  sense,  that,  in  order  to  render  the 
patterning  of  this  disk  possible,  the  entire  pattern- 
ing external  to  it  had  to  be  what  it  was,  and  could 
not  have  been  anything  else  in  any  single  partic- 
ular. Just  as,  according  to  Clifford,  in  any  single 
cubic  inch  of  matter,  scientific  omniscience  would 
discern  all  the  rest  of  the  universe,  so  is  one  special 
condition  of  all  the  rest  of  the  universe  essential  to 
the  given  condition  of  any  single  cubic  inch. 

The  consequences  of  this  fact  will  engage  our 
attention  presently;  but  since  many  people,  when 
once  it  is  plainly  stated,  may  be  tempted  to  look 

152 


THE    PRESENT    IMPLICIT    IN    THE    PAST 

on  the  statement  of  it  as  little  more  than  a  truism, 
let  me  explain,  before  we  go  further,  why  I  have 
dealt  with  it  at  such  tedious  length.  I  have  dealt 
with  it  at  such  length  because,  whether  it  is  a 
truism  or  no,  it  is  a  truth  which  is  utterly  lost 
sight  of  in  modern  scientific  speculation,  or,  it 
would  be  truer  to  say,  is  elaborately  hidden  from 
observation.  If  any  one  doubts  this,  he  need 
merely  consider  the  formula  in  which  the  whole 
evolutionary  theory  of  modern  science  has  been 
condensed  by  the  only  scientific  philosopher  be- 
longing to  our  own  country,  whose  fame  is  inter- 
national, and  who  speaks  in  all  civilized  languages. 
"  Evolution,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "  is  a  passage  of 
matter  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent,  homogenei- 
ty to  a  definite,  coherent,  heterogeneity";  and  the 
classical  example  which  he  gives  us  of  this  process 
is  evolution  of  ourselves  and  the  solar  system  from 
the  nebula  we  have  been  just  considering. 

To  this  formula  many  objections  have  been 
made  —  most  of  them  ridiculous,  others  perhaps 
sound;  but  they  have  none  of  them  been  directed 
against  its  fundamental  and  most  remarkable  de- 
ficiency, which  is  that  it  represents  matter  in  its 
nebular  state,  from  which  evolution  starts,  as  in- 
definite, or  arranged  in  no  necessary  and  specific 
pattern ;  and  as  homogeneous,  or  alike  all  through. 
Spencer's  language  not  only  fails  to  describe,  but 
it  positively  obscures  and  obliterates,  the  fact  which 
in  the  present  chapter  it  has  been  our  main  object 
to  elucidate — the  fact,  namely,  that  the  constitu- 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

tion  of  the  nebula  at  any  given  moment  must  have 
been  just  as  specific,  and  just  as  delicately  differen- 
tiated, as  any  of  the  phenomena  into  which  its 
elements  subsequently  transfigured  themselves.  If 
we  want  an  explanation  of  the  universe  that  shall 
be  an  explanation  in  any  true  sense,  it  is  in  this  fact, 
or  it  is  through  this  fact,  that  we  must  look  for  it. 
It  is  a  fact  which  must  evidently  represent  the 
causes  and  foundations  of  the  cosmos;  and  Spen- 
cer's formula,  and  the  practice  of  current  science 
generally,  covers  the  whole  of  these  over  with  a 
great,  brown  holland  sheet. 

I  do  not  deny  that,  so  far  as  the  present  point  is 
concerned,  Spencer's  terminology  was  sufficient  for 
his  own  purposes;  but  this  merely  shows  how 
limited  and  how  incomplete  are  the  views  which 
science  has  thus  far  taken  of  the  phenomena  with 
which  it  deals. 

In  the  following  chapter  we  will  pursue  the  sub- 
ject further. 


Ill 

MOLECULAR    PREARRANGEMENTS,    INDEFINITE 
HOMOGENEITIES,    AND    CHANCE 

IF  all  the  molecular  tesserae  external  to  that  part 
of  the  nebula  which  contains  what  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  brain  of  Augustine  in  anticipation  require 
to  be  arranged  or  patterned  in  one  way,  and  in  one 
way  only,  in  order  to  make  the  brain  of  Augustine 
a  possibility,  the  question  naturally  arises  of  how 
this  arrangement  came  about ;  and  the  more  closely 
we  consider  it  the  more  interesting  we  shall  find  it 
to  be. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  our  former  simple 
supposition  that  the  entire  contents  of  the  nebula 
are  made  up  of  twenty-six  letters;  that  three  of 
these  letters,  G  and  O  and  D,  get  shuffled  inside 
the  circle  representing  Augustine's  brain.  These 
three  form  an  intelligible  word,  but  none  of  the 
other  contiguous  letters  do.  An  ordinary  observer 
would  say  that  these  last  were  arranged  anyhow, 
while  the  three  letters  G,  O,  D  were  arranged  in 
a  specific  way.  He  would,  in  fact,  be  tempted  to 
use  the  language  of  Spencer's  formula  and  call  the 
letters  G,  O,  D,  as  arranged  in  that  order,  a  "  defi- 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

nite,  coherent,  heterogeneity,"  and  the  others  an  "  in- 
definite, incoherent,  homogeneity."  And  he  might 
justify  himself  in  doing  so  by  the  following  verbal 
reasons.  The  letters  G,  O,  D  are  definite  because 
they,  and  they  alone,  can  make  up  a  special  word, 
God ;  they  are  coherent  because,  they  make  it  up 
by  joining  together  to  do  so ;  and  they  are  hetero- 
geneous because,  in  producing  this  joint  result,  each 
letter  plays  a  special  and  a  different  part.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  remaining  letters  are  indefinite  and 
incoherent  in  their  arrangement  because  none  of 
them  cohere  so  as  to  produce  any  result  that  is 
intelligible,  and  are  homogeneous  because,  in  spite 
of  their  various  forms,  they  are  all  equally  dumb, 
and  are,  so  far,  practically  alike.  The  arrangement, 
in  short,  of  the  letters  G,  O,  D  may,  in  a  sense,  be 
looked  on  as  definite  and  highly  complex,  and  be 
contrasted,  as  such,  with  the  simpler  and  indefinite 
arrangement  of  the  others.  If,  however,  we  con- 
sider the  matter  further,  we  shall  see  that  this  seem- 
ing simplicity  in  the  arrangement  of  the  others  is 
delusive. 

Let  us  suppose  that  at  a  mine  in  a  hollow  among 
sloping  hills  the  ore  is  crushed  by  the  simultane- 
ous impact  of  six  iron  balls  converging  towards 
one  point,  and  that  these,  like  hammer  -  heads 
fixed  on  pivoted  handles,  are  made  to  concentrate 
their  blows  on  the  required  spot  by  machinery. 
The  machinery,  we  will  say,  is  elaborate,  and  one 
day  it  breaks  down ;  so  the  miners,  in  order  to  get 
on  without  it,  pile  up  the  ore  in  some  piece  of  open 

156 


PREARRANGEMENT  AND  CHANCE 

ground,  and  give  the  iron  balls  to  boys  who  are  to 
take  them  up  the  sides  of  the  hills,  and  roll  them 
down  at  such  moments,  and  from  such  spots,  that 
they  shall  all,  from  different  sides,  strike  the  ore 
simultaneously.  Now  this  method,  in  a  sense,  is 
much  simpler  than  the  elaborate  machinery ;  but  it 
obviously  also  requires  incalculably  nicer  adjust- 
ments. The  punctual  meeting  of  the  balls  at  the 
times  and  at  the  point  required  will  depend  on  a 
thousand  circumstances,  every  one  of  which  has  to 
be  taken  into  account.  Each  ball  will  roll  down  a 
different  gradient,  and  will  in  its  course  encounter 
a  variety  of  different  obstacles,  such  as  stones  and 
roots,  which  will  affect  it,  and  which  must  be  all 
allowed  for.  Thus,  though  the  mere  act  of  placing 
the  balls  in  the  six  different  positions,  starting  from 
which  they  would  meet  at  the  point  required,  would 
in  one  sense  be  simpler  than  that  of  constructing 
the  rudest  crushing-mill,  the  calculations  involved 
would  be  infinitely  more  complicated;  and  by  in- 
accuracies so  slight  as  to  be  inappreciable  in  the 
working  of  the  machinery,  the  desired  result  would 
be  rendered  in  this  case  impossible.  And  if  such 
nicety  of  arrangement  be  necessary  in  the  placing 
and  starting  of  our  balls,  in  order  to  secure  an  event 
so  simple  as  their  meeting  at  the  spot  required,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  incomparably  greater  will  be  the 
nicety  necessary  in  the  arrangement  of  the  tesserae 
of  the  primal  nebula,  in  order  to  produce  ultimately 
even  a  single  human  brain. 

We  are  all  of  us  familiar  with  the  pictures  of 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

kings  and  queens,  crowns,  cascades,  and  buildings, 
which  spring  into  light  during  an  exhibition  of  fire- 
works, as  the  result  of  the  application  of  a  single 
match  to  a  fuse.  In  order  to  produce  this  result 
complicated  wooden  structures,  with  cases  of  pow- 
der tied  to  them  —  different  cases  holding  pow- 
der of  different  kinds  —  have  to  be  prepared  be- 
forehand ;  and  on  the  definiteness  of  these  previous 
preparations  the  whole  result  depends.  The  nebula 
bears  to  the  human  brains  that  have  emerged  from 
it  the  same  sort  of  relation  that  the  wood-work  and 
cases  of  powder,  which,  seen  in  the  daylight,  are 
apparently  devoid  of  meaning,  bear  to  the  pictures 
of  fire  that  are  to  startle  the  night  presently. 

And  now  we  may  again  ask,  with  a  fuller  com- 
prehension of  the  question,  to  what  was  the  nebular 
prearrangement  due?  Let  us  first  see  how  the 
question  is  dealt  with  by  Spencer  himself ;  for  even 
he  recognizes  dimly  that  some  such  question  exists. 

His  general  answer  is  this :  that  wherever  matter 
exists  in  a  homogeneous  mass — such  as  that  of  the 
primal  nebula — it  is  of  necessity  unstable.  It  can- 
not remain  homogeneous.  Some  of  its  particles  in 
one  quarter  will  draw  nearer  together;  a  centre  of 
disturbance  will  be  formed  affecting  all  the  rest, 
and  by-and-by  the  whole  will  resolve  itself  into  a 
defined  pattern.  He  illustrates  his  meaning  by  the 
case  of  shellac  varnish,  a  coating  of  which,  if  ap- 
plied to  a  piece  of  paper,  soon  shows  on  its  surface 
a  number  of  polygonal  divisions,  developing  them- 
selves in  various  ways,  and  finally  covering  the 

158 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    CHANCE 

whole.  How,  then,  does  he  explain  this?  He  ex- 
plains it  by  the  fact  that  the  several  parts  of  "  the 
homogeneous  aggregation"  are  necessarily  exposed 
"to  the  operation  of  different  forces,"  one,  for  ex- 
ample, being  the  air,  which  dries  the  surface  of  the 
varnish  more  quickly  than  the  parts  beneath,  and 
this  illustration  is  sufficient  to  guide  us  to  what  he 
really  means.  He  means  that  the  homogeneous 
substance  from  which  evolution  starts  is  not  homo- 
geneous— that  is  to  say  all  alike — in  any  true  sense 
at  all,  but  is  from  the  beginning  differentiated  by  a 
variety  of  different  relations  borne  by  its  several 
parts  to  other  matter  surrounding  it.  If  all  matter, 
he  says,  were  "diffused  with  absolute  uniformity," 
the  homogeneous  would  not  be  unstable.  It  would 
remain  "absolutely  uniform";  or,  in  other  words, 
nothing  would  take  place  whatsoever. 

The  truth  is,  that  when  he  speaks  of  homogene- 
ous matter,  he  merely  means  matter  which  is  ho- 
mogeneous spectacularly.  He  arbitrarily  excludes 
from  his  conception  of  it  matter  as  allied  with  force. 
For  example,  if  two  similar  nails  were  lying  between 
two  magnets,  these  two  nails  would,  according  to 
him,  be  homogeneous,  in  the  sense  that  the  first 
was  spectacularly  a  replica  of  the  second.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  one  being  nearer  to 
one  magnet,  and  the  other  being  nearer  to  the 
other,  and  the  two  being  thus  magnetized  in  dif- 
ferent degrees  and  ways,  the  two  nails  in  their 
entirety  would  be  very  different  things.  Since, 
then,  as  a  further  fact,  force  and  matter  are  insepar- 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

able,  there  cannot,  in  so  far  as  change  takes  place 
anywhere,  be  any  such  thing  as  an  indefinite  homo- 
geneity in  existence ;  and  Spencer,  for  whom  evolu- 
tion is  a  concrete  fact  or  nothing,  in  endeavoring 
to  explain  a  concrete  fact  by  a  shadow.  Prac- 
tically, indeed,  he  admits  this  much  himself.  He 
admits  that  all  change  must  have  started  with  dif- 
ferentiation somewhere;  and  he  admits  also  what 
is  here  more  important  still.  Taking,  he  says,  any 
change  we  please  as  the  hypothetical  point  at 
which  "evolution  commences,"  we  must  remember 
that  this  change  was  "necessitated"  by  what  went 
before,  and  we  must  "add  to  this  the  conclusion 
that  the  changes  (thus  initiated)  must  continue." 
That  is  to  say,  not  only  is  evolution  initiated  by 
some  definite  arrangement  and  movement  of  defi- 
nitely heterogeneous  matter,  but  in  that  arrange- 
ment and  movement  all  the  products  of  evolution 
were  implicit  —  Augustine's  declaration  that  our 
sole  rest  is  in  God,  Spencer's  declaration  that  God 
is  merely  a  name  for  the  inscrutable,  and  every  word, 
comma  and  colon,  in  all  Spencer's  own  writings. 

Here  we  are  brought  back  to  our  original  ques- 
tion once  more — to  what  were  those  definite  ar- 
rangements of  matter  and  force  due,  which  con- 
tained, as  it  were,  all  these  things  in  cipher  ?  And 
to  this  Spencer  not  only  attempts  no  answer,  but 
he  does  not  even  recognize  clearly  what  the  nature 
of  the  question  is.  The  question  is — to  put  it  in 
its  most  pressing  form  —  why  did  cipher  contain 
in  it  the  word  "man"?  And  Spencer,  in  effect, 

1 60 


PREARRANGEMENT  AND  CHANCE 

answers,  "Because  a  pen  wrote  it."  True,  a  pen 
wrote  it ;  but  what  we  want  to  consider  is,  why  did 
the  pen  write  "man,"  and  not  something  totally 
different  ?  Why  did  it  write  anything  intelligible, 
and  not  a  mere  meaningless  scrawl? 

Spencer,  however,  though  he  does  not  attempt 
an  answer,  with  any  knowledge  that  he  is  doing 
so,  does  incidentally  give  one  of  a  kind;  and  it  is 
given  by  him  in  the  doctrine  which  forms  the  foun- 
dation of  his  whole  philosophy — his  doctrine  that 
the  Power,  of  which  the  universe  is  a  manifesta- 
tion, is  unknowable.  By  this  he  means,  as  we  have 
had  occasion  to  see  already,  that  none  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  universe  give  us  any  ground  for  sup- 
posing that  this  Power  possesses  any  attributes  con- 
jecturable  or  comprehensible  by  ourselves.  Now 
the  first  attribute  of  power  comprehensible  by  our- 
selves is  purpose.  It  follows,  therefore,  that,  be  the 
cause  what  it  may,  of  that  primary  arrangement 
of  matter  with  which  evolution  started,  and  which 
definitely  contained  in  embryo  everything  which 
has  been  since  evolved,  this  cause  cannot  have  been 
what  we  ourselves  mean  by  purpose,  or  design,  or 
intelligence,  or  any  other  kindred  faculty.  Evi- 
dently, then,  at  the  bottom  of  Spencer's  mind,  the 
cause  was  represented  as  Chance,  in  some  sense  of 
the  word,  and  his  phraseology  shows  constantly 
that  such  was  actually  the  case.  Matter  arranged 
itself  in  the  requisite  way  somehow.  There  was  a 
blind  shuffling  of  force-centres  and  molecular  aggre- 
gates; and  after  a  time  the  requisite  arrangement 

161 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

was  hit  upon.  And  here  he  is  in  agreement  with  all 
scientific  philosophers  who,  loyal  to  the  data  of 
science  as  thus  far  understood,  deny  themselves  the 
privilege  of  admitting  the  existence  of  a  supreme 
intelligence.  Many  of  these  philosophers,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  are  not  much  given  to  facing 
what  is  really  their  fundamental  doctrine;  but 
Haeckel,  who  in  all  fundamentals,  is  absolutely  at 
one  with  Spencer,  boldly  declares  that  this  is  the 
only  doctrine  possible.  We  will,  therefore,  take  it 
as  stated  by  the  most  famous  of  its  living  exponents, 
and  then  go  on  to  examine  it  more  carefully  than 
he  has  done  himself. 

In  one  sense  Professor  Haeckel  admits  that 
Chance  has  no  existence  —  that  is  to  say  in  the 
sense  of  events  that  have  no  cause.  "Every 
phenomenon  has,"  he  says,  "a  mechanical  cause; 
but,"  he  continues,  "since  the  development  of  the 
universe  is  a  mechanical  process,  in  which  we  dis- 
cover no  aim  or  purpose  whatever  ...  it  is  not  only 
lawful,  but  necessary  to  retain  the  term  chance,  for 
the  purpose  of  expressing  the  simultaneous  oc- 
currence of  two  phenomena,  which  are  not  casually 
related  to  each  other,  but  of  which  each  has  its 
own  mechanical  cause,  independent  of  that  of  the 
other."  The  part  which  Chance  of  this  kind  plays 
in  the  evolution  of  the  universe  may  be  understood, 
he  continues,  by  considering  how  it  influences  the 
lives  of  men.  Thus,  to  take  an  example  of  our  own 
— for  he  gives  none  himself — a  powerful  statesman, 
whose  policy  was  ruining  a  nation,  is  killed  by  a 

162 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    CHANCE 

falling  brick  as  he  walks  along  in  the  street.  The 
nation  is  saved  from  his  malign  influence,  and 
recovers  itself,  and  all  subsequent  history  is  modi- 
fied by  this  fact.  The  fall  of  the  brick  has  a  train 
of  mechanical  causes  behind  it ;  so  has  the  position 
of  the  statesman's  skull  when  struck  by  it ;  but  the 
fact  that  the  brick  and  the  skull  were  at  the  same 
place  simultaneously  is  not  "casually  related"  to 
one  set  of  antecedents  or  to  the  other.  It  is  for- 
tuitous, or  a  matter  of  chance ;  and  yet  intelligible 
history  is  made  by  it.  The  same  is  the  case  with 
the  universe  on  an  infinitely  larger  scale.  Casual- 
ty provides  the  material ;  chance  coincidence  turns 
out  the  finished  article. 

Such  is  Professor  Haeckel's  doctrine.  Let  us 
illustrate  it  in  another  way,  which  will  throw  a 
very  interesting  light  on  it.  According  to  him, 
the  various  phenomena  of  the  universe,  in  so  far  as 
each  has  its  own  train  of  causes  behind  it,  are  like 
jets  of  water  spurted  through  holes  in  a  rock,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  pressure  of  the  rising  tide  of  the  sea. 
The  upward  course  of  each  jet  has  its  own  causes 
which  determine  it ;  but  if  it  happens  that  some  of 
the  jets  collide,  and  the  water,  as  a  result  of  the 
collision,  takes  new  and  peculiar  shapes,  "casual 
relation"  disappears,  and  the  element  of  Chance 
asserts  itself.  In  other  words,  there  is,  according 
to  Haeckel,  no  Chance  in  sequences;  there  is 
nothing  but  Chance  in  coincidences.  Nothing  is 
Chance  vertically;  everything  is  Chance  laterally. 
Now  this,  in  all  essentials,  is  the  precise  doctrine 

163 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  Lucretius.  According  to  Lucretius,  the  original 
condition  of  matter  was  that  of  a  rain  of  atoms 
falling  in  parallel  lines ;  but  at  some  place  or  places 
some  of  these  lines  were  deflected.  One  striking 
another,  their  atoms  met  and  joined.  An  aggrega- 
tion of  particles  took  place ;  a  rotary  movement  en- 
sued; the  aggregation  of  particles  grew  bigger  and 
bigger  like  a  snowball — 

And  in  this  mode  that  certain  whorl  began, 

Which  turned  at  last  to  earth  and  heaven  and  man. 

Professor  Haeckel  finds  himself,  therefore,  in  very 
classical  company.  The  earliest  thought  and  the 
latest  thought  coalesce. 

Now  if  we  ask  what  the  significance  of  this 
doctrine  of  Chance  is,  as  applied  to  the  problem 
of  how  the  process  began  which  has  issued  in 
the  orderly  and  intelligible  world  we  know,  the 
answer  will  be  that,  according  to  the  law  of  chances, 
if  particles  are  shuffled  about  for  a  time  practically 
infinite,  they  will  assume  all  possible  positions, 
until  somewhere  the  'grouping  is  reached  with 
which  orderly  evolution  starts.  In  examining, 
therefore,  the  value  of  Professor  Haeckel's  doctrine 
which,  apart  from  that  of  purpose,  is  the  only 
doctrine  possible,  our  first  step  must  be  to  inquire 
what  the  word  Chance  really  means.  Unless  we 
make  ourselves  perfectly  clear  as  to  that,  to  give 
the  name  of  Chance  to  the  prolific  coincidences  of 
the  universe,  is  to  do  no  more  than  baptize  them 
with  a  new  name. 

164 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    CHANCE 

There  are  few  ideas  which,  in  a  general  and  un- 
analyzed  way,  are  more  familiar  to  everybody  than 
this  idea  of  Chance;  and  the  idea  corresponds 
doubtless  to  a  highly  important  reality.  But  the 
popular  mind  is  under  the  influence  of  a  singular 
delusion  as  to  what  the  nature  of  this  reality  is; 
and  Professor  Haeckel  and  his  whole  school  are 
equally  under  its  influence  also. 

The  nature  of  their  error  can  be  explained  most 
readily  by  dealing  with  Chance  as  it  shows  itself 
in  matters  of  daily  life.  Described  briefly,  it  con- 
sists simply  in  this  —  in  attributing  to  external 
phenomena  what  exists  solely  in  ourselves.  It  is 
an  error  the  converse  of  that  which  attributed  a 
diurnal  motion  not  to  the  earth  but  to  the  sun. 
Chance,  as  commonly  conceived  of,  may  be  com- 
pared to  some  external  object,  which  is  shaken  to 
and  fro  in  a  bewildering  way  before  us;  the  fact 
being  in  reality  that  the  external  object  is  station- 
ary, and  it  is  we  who  are  being  shaken  before  it 
by  the  rhythm  of  our  own  ignorance.  Chance,  in 
short,  so  far  as  human  beings  are  concerned,  is 
simply  human  ignorance  of  a  certain  peculiar  kind. 

Let  us  take  what,  for  most  people  is  Chance  in  its 
classical  form — namely,  the  falling  of  the  ball  at 
roulette  into  a  red  compartment  or  a  black  one. 
To  the  average  player,  this  seems  an  affair  of  chance 
either  because  he  imagines  that,  the  ball  having 
once  been  started,  it  may  fall  into  a  black  com- 
partment or  a  red  compartment  indifferently;  or 
else  because  he  imagines  that  the  force  with  which 
ia  165 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  croupier  starts  it  is  somehow  or  other  deter- 
mined by  no  cause  in  particular.  In  reality,  the 
result  is  as  inevitable  as  the  movement  of  the 
clock  in  the  gambling-room,  not  only  from  the 
moment  when  the  ball  is  first  set  in  motion,  but 
before  it  has  felt  the  touch  of  the  croupier's  hand. 
Apart  from  the  mysterious  interference  of  free- 
will, which,  as  the  reader  must  remember,  we  are 
here  rigidly  excluding,  the  force  which  the  croupier 
exerts  is  a  quantity  exactly  determined  by  the 
condition  at  the  moment  of  his  attention  or  his 
nervous  system;  and  not  even  a  gambler,  if  he 
will  but  pause  to  think,  can  doubt  that  the  result 
is  inevitable  as  soon  as  the  spin  is  given.  The 
element  of  Chance  lies  solely  in  the  three  facts, 
that  the  croupier  is  unable  to  calculate  the  force 
which  he  necessarily  exerts,  and  that  the  ignorance 
of  the  players  is  even  more  complete  than  his,  and 
that  the  latter,  in  placing  their  stakes,  commit  them- 
selves to  a  course  of  action  which  is  determined, 
indeed,  by  some  cause,  but  by  a  cause  which  is  not 
knowledge.  If,  instead  of  the  game  of  roulette,  we 
take  that  of  trente-et-quarante,  this  will  be  clearer 
still.  The  croupier  here  has  a  number  of  packs  of 
cards  before  him,  elaborately  shufHed  together 
before  the  game  begins,  and  the  result  of  each  coup 
depends  wholly  on  the  hidden  order  in  which  the 
cards  have  by  this  means  been  placed;  and  hence 
it  is  obvious  that  the  winnings  of  red  and  black 
will  follow  each  other  as  certainly  as  they  would 
were  they  so  many  feet  or  inches  marked  on  a 

166 


PRE ARRANGEMENT  AND  CHANCE 

measuring-tape  which  the  croupier  gradually  un- 
wound. The  objective  certainties  are  forewritten, 
and  potentially  visible  before  any  special  chance 
is  thought  of.  The  chance  is  not  in  the  cards:  it 
is  in  the  players,  and  in  the  players  only. 

If  this  truth  requires  any  further  assertion,  let 
us  take  the  case  of  the  tossing  up  of  a  coin.  If  a 
coin  be  tossed  an  indefinite  number  of  times,  the 
number  of  heads  and  tails  that  come  up  will  be 
equal.  So  theorists  say ;  and  they  add  in  the  same 
breath  that,  however  many  times  heads  may  have 
turned  up  already,  the  chances  are  still  equal  that 
heads  will  turn  up  again.  But  when  they  speak 
thus,  they  always  make  one  assumption — that  what 
tosses  the  coin  is  a  hand.  Were  it  tossed  by  an  ac- 
curate machine,  under  circumstances  always  iden- 
tical, the  same  sequence  of  heads  and  tails  would 
always  reappear  in  cycles;  and  tails,  it  is  quite 
possible  might  always  outnumber  heads.  What 
the  doctrine  of  the  theorist  means,  though  he  may 
not  himself  know  it,  is  that  when  the  coin  is  tossed 
by  a  human  hand,  the  hand,  as  a  fact,  oscillates 
between  two  classes  of  movement,  which  the 
human  being  cannot  himself  control,  but  are  ren- 
dered numerically  equal  by  the  general  equilibrium 
of  his  system.  Let  us  take  one  case  more.  Two 
pedestrians  come  on  an  unknown  railway,  and 
pause  to  bet  on  whether  the  next  train  that  passes 
will  be  a  passenger  train  or  a  goods  train.  For  the 
officials  of  the  railway  this  will  be  a  matter  of  cer- 
tainty. For  the  two  pedestrians  it  will  be  a  matter 

167 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  pure  chance.  And  why  ?  Simply  because  they 
are  ignorant  of  what  the  railway  officials  know. 
The  doctrine  of  chances,  then,  as  applied  to  human 
affairs,  is  a  doctrine  of  human  nature,  not  of  any 
facts  external  to  it.  As  applied  to  external  facts,  it 
has  no  meaning  whatever. 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  the  cosmic  events  of 
nature,  most  of  which  took  place  before  man  came 
into  existence;  and  let  us  examine  the  doctrine 
of  chance,  as  applied  by  Professor  Haeckel  to 
these.  Prolific  coincidences  are  Chance,  he  says; 
mechanical  sequences  are  not:  and  it  was  owing 
to  chance  coincidences  that  a  cosmos  sprang  from 
chaos.  Now  he  draws  this  distinction,  as  we  have 
seen  already,  on  the  ground  that  there  is  between 
sequent  events  a  "causal  relationship,"  while  be- 
tween coincident  events  there  is  none.  But  we 
need  not  speculate  long  about  the  nature  of  Chance 
to  see  that  this  distinction,  as  it  stands,  cannot 
possibly  be  true ;  for  if  it  were,  the  most  surprising 
results  would  follow,  as  an  example  taken  from 
human  life  will  show.  Between  the  separate 
gangs  of  workmen  who  built  out  the  Forth  Bridge 
bar  by  bar  from  opposite  sides  of  the  estuary, 
there  was  in  a  sense  no  causal  relationship;  but 
when  at  last  the  two  arms  of  the  long  cantilevers 
met,  accurately  to  the  fraction  of  an  inch,  "the 
simultaneous  occurrence  of  these  two  phenomena" 
would  not  have  been  ascribed  to  Chance  even  by 
Professor  Haeckel  himself.  And  why?  Were  he 
asked  the  question,  the  answer  he  would  make  is 

168 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    CHANCE 

obvious.  He  would  say  that  though  the  causes — 
namely,  the  separate  gangs  of  workmen  —  which 
produced  respectively  the  two  arms  of  the  bridge 
were  in  a  superficial  sense  not  interrelated,  yet  in  a 
deeper  sense  they  were  so,  being  both  directed  by 
the  intelligence  of  the  same  contractor.  The 
original  cause,  he  would  say,  in  a  case  like  this 
bifurcates;  but  the  same  necessity  that  makes  it 
split  into  two  stems  at  one  point  makes  the  two 
stems  become  one  again  at  another.  And  his 
answer  would  be  perfectly  correct.  But  it  has  an 
application  wider  than  he  himself  sees.  It  applies 
to  the  works  of  nature  no  less  than  to  the  works 
of  man. 

Let  us  return  to  our  jets  of  water  spurted  through 
the  holes  in  a  rock.  Each  jet  follows  its  own  course 
in  obedience  partly  to  the  shape  of  its  own  hole, 
partly  to  the  general  water  -  pressure  caused  by 
the  rising  tide;  but  the  same  parent  pressure 
actuates  all  alike,  and  the  holes,  without  which 
they  could  none  of  them  spurt  at  all,  determine 
absolutely,  by  their  shapes,  the  course  which  each 
jet  shall  take.  Each  might  be  a  train  travelling 
along  a  line  of  rails.  If,  then,  in  pursuance  of 
these  their  necessary  courses,  two  jets  collide  and 
break  into  new  shapes,  how  is  the  "simultaneous 
occurrence  of  these  two  phenomena"  more  a 
matter  of  Chance  than  the  occurrence  of  each 
separately?  How  is  it  possible  scientifically  to 
draw  any  distinction  between  them  ? 

Let  us  take  another  example.  Let  us  suppose 
169 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

that  a  stick  of  toffee,  if  kept  in  a  hot  cupboard, 
separates  gradually  into  its  two  original  elements, 
and  becomes  a  pat  of  butter  and  a  little  puddle 
of  treacle.  Professor  Haeckel  would  certainly 
tell  us  that  there  was  no  chance  here.  We  should 
have  a  single  series  of  strict  mechanical  causes. 
But  let  us  suppose  that  we  have  another  com- 
posite substance,  which  separates,  being  similarly 
placed,  into  phosphorus  and  a  heap  of  gunpowder, 
that  the  phosphorus  then  takes  fire,  and  both  go  off 
with  a  bang,  spoiling  some  nice  biscuits  and  break- 
ing the  cupboard  door.  Here,  according  to  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel' s  definition,  would  be  chance  in  an 
aggravated  form.  There  would  be  three  "simul- 
taneous phenomena"  having  no  "causal  relation- 
ship." The  peculiar  properties  of  the  phosphorus 
prior  to  the  moment  of  the  explosion  are  not  causal- 
ly connected  with  the  peculiar  properties  of  the  gun- 
powder; and  heat  of  the  cupboard,  which  makes 
the  phosphorus  burn,  has  no  causal  connection  with 
either.  There  was,  however,  as  little  causal  con- 
nection in  the  other  case  between  the  heat  of  the 
cupboard  and  the  properties  of  the  butter  and  the 
treacle.  Why,  then,  is  there  chance  in  the  one 
case,  and  no  chance  in  the  other?  The  answer 
is  obvious.  In  the  case  of  the  toffee  no  idea  of 
chance  suggested  itself,  because  the  simultaneous 
occurrence  of  the  three  phenomena  in  question  did 
not  unite  in  producing  any  marked  result.  There 
is  nothing  to  provoke  a  question,  so  chance  is  not 
offered  as  an  answer  to  it.  In  the  other  case  a 

170 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    CHANCE 

question  is  provoked  by  results  of  the  most  unex- 
pected kind,  and  chance  is  invoked  to  answer  it — 
why?  For  no  other  reason  than  this,  that  the 
result  is  unexpected.  The  composite  substance — 
we  have  been  tacitly  assuming  this — was  put  into 
the  cupboard  by  a  person  who  knew  nothing  of  its 
properties.  But  we  have  only  to  change  our 
assumption,  and  suppose  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  somebody  to  spoil  the  biscuits  and  to  blow  the 
cupboard  up,  and  that  the  substance  was  placed  in 
it  with  a  view  to  this  special  end;  and  the  whole 
idea  of  chance  is  instantly  made  ridiculous,  and  its 
origin  is  thereby  disclosed.  It  does  not  depend  on 
any  absence  of  causal  relationships.  It  comes  into 
being  only  with  an  absence  of  human  knowledge. 

And  if  we  go  back  to  the  case  of  the  jets  of 
water,  to  the  mechanical  causes  which  determine 
the  course  of  each  individually,  and  the  chance, 
as  contrasted  with  these,  to  which  Haeckel  would 
ascribe  their  collisions,  we  shall  find  that  the  idea 
of  chance  has  precisely  the  same  origin.  Here, 
indeed,  human  agency  has  no  part  in  the  actual 
performance;  but  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that  there 
is  an  ideal  human  spectator,  who  can  calculate  one 
set  of  phenomena — namely,  the  courses  of  the  jets 
individually,  but  who  cannot  calculate  the  other — 
namely,  the  way  in  which  the  jets  will  collide,  and 
the  results  that  will  follow  from  their  collision. 

And  this  brings  us  to  what  is  really  the  heart  of 
the  matter.  Chance  in  nature  or  the  universe  is 
essentially  the  same  thing  as  chance  at  roulette  or 

171 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

at  trente-et-quarante.  It  is  the  emergence  of  a 
definite  result  to  which  our  attention  is  directed, 
but  the  causes  of  which  cannot  be  traced  by  the 
mind  supposed  to  be  contemplating  it.  It  is  the 
emergence  of  a  result  whose  intelligibility,  so  far 
as  we  ourselves  are  concerned,  is  in  excess  of  the 
intelligibility  of  its  antecedents;  and  the  emphasis 
with  which  chance  is  invoked  as  a  means  of  ex- 
plaining it  is,  for  Professor  Haeckel  and  his  school, 
in  proportion  to  this  excess. 

So  far  as  science  is  concerned,  or  any  philosophy 
founded  on  it,  Chance,  as  attributed  to  the  universe, 
cannot  be  described  better  than  by  applying  to  it 
the  terms  which  Professor  Haeckel  applies  to  God. 
It  is  "an  anthropistic  illusion."  It  is  the  erection 
of  a  purely  subjective  effect  which  is  confined  to 
our  own  consciousness,  into  an  objective  cause 
which  governs  the  evolution  of  all  the  worlds. 
The  use,  moreover,  which  is  made  of  it  by  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  and  those  who  agree  with  him,  is 
a  reintroduction  by  monists  of  the  very  dualism 
which  they  claim  to  repudiate;  and  which  differs 
from  the  dualism  of  the  theists  in  the  manner  of 
its  application  only.  Theists  are  dualistic  in  order 
to  make  room  for  God.  Monists  lapse  into  dualism, 
in  order  that  no  room  for  Him  may  be  left.  In 
other  words,  they  invoke  the  doctrine  of  Chance 
merely  in  order  to  answer,  without  reference  to 
any  cosmic  or  divine  purpose,  the  question  of  how 
an  intelligible  cosmos  rose  out  of  a  seeming  chaos. 
Otherwise  the  doctrine  plays  no  part  in  their 

172 


PREARRANGEMENT  AND  CHANCE 

system,  with  which,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  alto- 
gether incompatible;  and  considered  as  an  answer 
to  the  question,  it  is,  as  we  have  now  seen  also, 
nothing  else  than  a  formal,  though  veiled,  confession 
that,  on  their  own  principles,  no  answer  is  possible. 

In  examining,  therefore,  the  attitude  of  science 
with  regard  to  the  ultimate  question,  the  doctrine 
of  Chance  may  be  set  altogether  on  one  side,  and 
with  it  its  Spencerian  equivalent,  the  doctrine  of 
indefinite  homogeneities;  and  when  this  is  done 
we  shall  see  in  its  true  light  the  position  in  which 
science  stands  with  regard  to  the  Riddle  of  the 
Universe.  If  this  science  is  tested  by  its  own 
principles,  which  we  are  here  all  along  accepting, 
and  to  which  alone  we  appeal,  we  shall  see  that  it 
does  one  thing  of  which  itself  it  has  no  adequate 
conception.  It  does  not  answer  the  riddle;  but 
what  it  does  do  is  to  restate  it  with  an  amplitude 
and  clearness  of  detail  never  attained  till  now. 
Professor  Haeckel's  work,  for  example,  which  pur- 
ports to  provide  us  with  a  solution  of  it,  is  in  effect 
a  magnifying-glass  of  enormous  power,  which  helps 
us  to  see  clearly  what  the  question  to  be  solved  is, 
little  as  he  himself  understands  what  he  has  done 
so  much  to  reveal. 

The  great  truth  which  Professor  Haeckel,  more 
popularly  than  any  other  writer,  exhibits  as  the 
conclusion  of  all  science  is  this,  that  the  entire 
universe,  organic  and  inorganic,  solid  or  nebulous, 
past,  present,  and  future,  is  a  single  system  of 
interconnected  causes;  that  everything  that  is,  is 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  equivalent  of  all  that  was;  and  conversely, 
though  he  fails  to  draw  this  inference  himself,  that 
all  that  ever  has  been,  has  been  the  equivalent  of 
all  that  is — that  if  the  atoms  had  to  clash  for  a 
million  million  years  before  the  arrangement  was 
reached  from  which  modern  evolution  started,  this 
special  arrangement — this  and  no  other — was  im- 
plied in  each  prior  moment  of  the  seemingly  aimless 
tumult. 

When  a  delicate  picture  is  being  painted  on  a 
Sevres  plate,  the  colors  which  the  artist  lays  on 
are  grotesquely  different  from  those  which  by-and- 
by  will  tempt  the  eye  of  the  purchaser.  The  orig- 
inal colors  change  in  the  process  of  firing;  but 
it  is  on  the  original  colors  that  the  final  colors  de- 
pend. The  nebular  and  prenebular  universe  were 
the  plate  in  its  first  stages.  An  exposed  photo- 
graphic film,  when  first  taken  out  of  the  camera, 
has  a  surface  seemingly  as  homogeneous  as  Spen- 
cer's shellac  varnish ;  but  every  detail  is  hidden  in 
it  which  the  developer  subsequently  brings  to  light. 
The  universe,  for  science,  is  necessarily  a  film  like 
this,  the  slow  developer  being  time.  Or  we  may 
call  it  the  disk  of  a  gramophone,  lined  from  the  very 
first  with  the  words  which,  by  means  of  its  endless 
whirling,  we  are  uttering  to  one  another  to-day. 
Haeckel  and  Spencer  and  their  works  were  in  the 
movements  of  the  presolar  flocculi,  and  Augustine's 
appeal  to  God  was  crying  out  of  the  primal  flames. 

We  are  thus  brought  back,  armed  with  a  clearer 
knowledge,  to  the  point  which  we  had  reached  at 


PREARRANGEMENT  AND  CHANCE 

the  close  of  the  last  chapter.  We  there  saw  that 
current  science,  when  dealing  with  the  ultimate 
causes  of  things,  instead  of  answering,  or  trying  to 
answer,  the  problem,  throws,  as  was  said,  a  cloth 
over  all  its  details,  and  makes  an  answer  impossible 
by  simply  hiding  the  question.  Under  the  name 
of  Chance,  or  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity, 
it  exhibits  the  nebular  or  prenebular  universe  as 
a  blur;  whereas  in  reality  its  condition  at  any 
moment,  no  matter  how  remote  from  the  begin- 
nings of  the  existing  cosmos,  must  always  have 
been  as  specific  as  that  cosmos  itself,  and  the  con- 
ditions of  the  living  creatures  which  have  inhabited 
our  own  planet.  We  have  now  rescued  the  problem 
from  the  artificial  obscurity  in  which  incomplete 
thought  and  inaccurate  language  have  involved 
it ;  and  the  so-called  indefinite  homogeneity  which 
Spencer  takes  as  his  starting-point  is  revealed  to 
us  like  an  elaborate  landscape  when  a  mist  has 
been  blown  away  from  it;  or  like  a  slab  of  mar- 
ble, the  surface  of  which,  having  been  accepted  as 
blank,  because  it  has  been  coated  with  the  dust 
of  negligent  ages,  is  seen  on  being  cleaned,  to  be 
lined  with  innumerable  hieroglyphics.  The  ques- 
tion really  at  issue  now  begins  to  assert  itself.  How 
are  the  hieroglyphics  to  be  deciphered  ?  Where  is 
the  Rosetta  Stone — where  is  the  bilingual  tablet — 
which  will  enable  us  to  spell  them  out?  This  is 
the  question  to  which  we  will  now  proceed. 


IV 

MIND   AND    PURPOSE    IN    THE    CAUSE   WHICH    IS 
THE    SYNTHESIS    OP    ALL    CAUSES 

IT  is  a  truism  for  common-sense,  and  it  is  a  truism 
for  all  philosophies,  scientific  or  other,  that  we 
know  nothing  except  through  the  agency  of  our 
own  minds.  For  all  philosophies  also,  if  not  for 
common-sense,  it  is  a  truth  that  our  minds  are  at 
once  passive  and  active.  Passively,  they  receive 
impressions.  Actively,  they  weave  these  impres- 
sions into  orderly  and  intelligible  forms.  By  the 
metaphysical  philosophers,  as  we  saw  in  a  previous 
chapter,  this  activity  was  supposed  to  reside  in  an 
entity  which  is  separate  from  the  universe,  and 
which  weaves  as  an  alien  the  material  which  the 
universe  gives  it.  For  scientific  philosophy,  with 
which  alone  we  are  here  concerned,  the  activity  in 
question  is  part  of  the  universe  itself,  having  its 
seat  in  the  thought-organs  of  the  brain,  which  as- 
sociate and  combine  the  impressions  prepared  by 
the  sense-organs;  and  each  human  mind  is  thus 
part  of  a  universe  which,  in  it,  is  partially  repro- 
ducing its  own  image  in  miniature. 

Now  that  such  must  be  the  case  in  a  vague  and 
176 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

generalized  sense,  Spencer,  Haeckel,  and  the  whole 
scientific  school  admit.  We  being  minds,  and  we 
being  products  of  the  universe,  it  follows  that  in  a 
certain  sense  the  universe  must  be  mind  also.  But 
they  maintain  that  this  holds  good  in  a  general 
sense  only.  A  human  mind  in  the  abstract  indi- 
cates a  corresponding  indeterminate  mind  in  the 
universe ;  but,  as  a  particular  mind,  thinking  par- 
ticular thoughts,  comprising  particular  feelings,  and 
hoping  and  purposing  in  connection  with  them,  it 
indicates  nothing  in  the  universe  that  similarly 
corresponds  to  these.  Indeed,  to  suppose  that  it 
can  do  so,  is  precisely  what  Spencer  and  Haeckel 
ridicule  under  the  name  of  anthropomorphism.  It 
is  here  that  the  fundamental  error  of  these  thinkers 
lies.  They  neither  of  them  seem  to  suspect  that 
this  indiscriminate  contempt  for  anthropomor- 
phism is,  just  as  their  doctrine  of  Chance  is,  a  recru- 
descence of  dualism  or  a  relic  of  it.  If  the  think- 
ing and  feeling  man  is,  as  theologians  say  he  is,  not 
derived  from  the  universe,  it  might  be  absurd  to 
suppose  that  his  ideas  could  throw  any  light  on  its 
character;  but  since,  according  to  their  own  prin- 
ciples, he  is  an  absolutely  inseparable  part  of  it,  to 
suppose  that  its  character  as  a  whole  must  be  indi- 
cated by  his  ideas  in  some  way,  is  no  more  absurd 
than  to  suppose  that  we  can,  by  the  aid  of  the 
spectrum,  find  out  something  or  other  with  regard 
to  the  character  of  the  stars. 

This  error  of  Spencer  and  Haeckel  is  one  which 
has  two  origins.     It  is  due  partly  to  a  survival  of 

177 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  theological  conception  of  the  soul;  but  it  is 
more  particularly  due  to  a  failure  to  perceive  a 
fact  which  has  formed  the  central  subject  of  our 
two  preceding  chapters,  and  which  it  is  necessary 
here  that  we  should  briefly  state  once  more.     It 
is  perfectly  true  that  if  we  take  some  special  part, 
such  as  man,  which  is  due  to  a  causal  whole, 
through  the  action  of  intermediate  causes,  we  can- 
not argue  from  the  character  of  the  part  in  ques- 
tion to  the  character  of  any  of  the  intermediate 
causes  separately,  for  they  are  only  parts  of  the 
causal  whole  themselves;  and  if  all  the  parts  of 
the  whole  are  interconnected,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
universe  they  must  be,  no  part  can  be  explicable 
if  separated  from  any  of  the  others.     But  we  not 
only  can,  we  are  scientifically  bound,  to  argue  from 
the  character  of  the  part  in  question  to  the  character 
of  the  whole,  as  such,  in  which  all  the  intermediate 
causes  were  implicit  as  a  perfect  synthesis.     If  the 
hand  of  a  painter  had  a  separate  consciousness  of 
its  own,  it  could,  from  seeing  the  pictures  it  was 
made  to  paint,  infer  nothing  as  to  the  morals  of 
the   painter's   elbow;   but   the   hand   with   which 
Michael   Angelo   painted   the    "Last  Judgment," 
might  have  inferred  a  good  deal  as  to  the  character 
of  Michael  Angelo  himself.    Since  then  the  universe 
as  a  whole,  though  as  a  whole  only,  not  merely 
contains  all  the  particles  out  of  which  the  brain  of 
man  is  made,  but  is  also  the  power  by  which  these 
particles  are  combined ;  and  since  it  has  not  merely 
caused  the  appearance  of  human  thought  in  gen- 

178 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

eral,  but  also  the  appearance  of  all  the  individual 
thoughts,  ideas,  images,  desires,  and  feelings,  of 
which  the  mental  life  of  each  separate  man  con- 
sists, the  universe  must  itself  be  thought  which  in 
some  sense  is  akin  to  ours. 

We  must,  then,  recognize  anthropomorphism, 
understood  with  certain  limitations,  as  providing  us 
with  what  is  not  only  not  an  illegitimate,  but  the 
sole  scientific  means,  of  approaching  the  problem 
of  the  ultimate  character  of  the  universe.  Just 
now  we  compared  the  Unknowable  First  Cause, 
as  Haeckel,  Spencer,  and  their  whole  school  rep- 
resent it,  to  a  seemingly  blank  slab,  which  when 
cleaned  by  a  further  application  of  the  methods  of 
these  thinkers  themselves,  is  seen  to  be  covered 
with  innumerable  cryptic  inscriptions;  and  we 
asked  whether  it  were  possible  to  discover  any 
Rosetta  Stone — any  bilingual  tablet — by  means  of 
which  we  might  be  able  to  spell  out  a  part  of  them ; 
and  here  we  have  our  answer.  The  Rosetta  Stone 
of  the  universe  for  ourselves  is  the  human  brain, 
in  which  matter  and  conscious  mind  are  immedi- 
ately presented  to  us  as  identical,  and  we  are  able 
to  watch  reality  at  work  under  its  two  aspects. 
Let  us  see  what  we  can  make  out,  having  this  clew 
to  guide  us;  and  if  any  reader  should  think  that 
we  are  entering  on  a  wild-goose  chase,  his  attention 
shall  be  called  to  two  facts  which  will  reassure  him. 

In  the  first  place,  if  he  is  still  haunted  by  the 
scientific  dread  of  anthropomorphism,  we  may 
point  out  to  him  that  we  shall  be  in  no  danger  of 

179 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

pushing  our  method  too  far,  and  representing  the 
universe  as  a  "magnified  and  non-natural  man"; 
for  the  very  reasoning  which  shows  us  that  the 
universal  mind  must  be  like  our  own  in  some  ways, 
shows  us,  as  we  presently  shall  have  occasion  to 
see,  that  it  must  be  sufficiently  unlike  them  in 
others  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting.  In  the  second 
place,  if  he  still  thinks  that  our  method  is  merely 
fanciful,  he  may  be  comforted  by  finding  that  we 
shall  be  accompanied  on  the  first  stage  of  our 
journey  by  a  no  less  unlikely  person  than  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  himself. 

Professor  Haeckel,  though  he  denies  even  more 
dogmatically  than  Spencer  that  the  universe  can 
possess  as  a  whole  any  character  intelligible  to 
ourselves,  has  taken  a  step  on  which  Spencer  never 
ventured.  He  has  pointed  out  that  it  must  of 
necessity  have  a  specific  mental  character  in  its 
parts.  And,  as  coming  from  him,  this  doctrine  is 
all  the  more  forcible,  because  he  not  only  does  not 
urge  it  with  any  theistic  purpose,  but  is  on  his  own 
confession  driven  to  have  recourse  to  it,  because 
his  non-theistic  science  cannot  get  on  without  it. 
His  argument,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  essentially 
similar  to  our  own.  Since  matter,  as  we  know  it 
in  the  brain,  thinks  and  feels,  all  matter  must  in 
some  sense  be  possessed  of  the  same  qualities;  for 
if  it  were  not,  the  brain  would  be  necessarily  half 
miraculous — a  sponge,  as  it  were,  surreptitiously 
saturated  with  some  psychic  essence  not  of  its  own 
world.  We  cannot  do  better  than  follow  him,  till 

180 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

he  comes  to  an  abrupt  halt,  in  his  interesting  veri- 
fication of  this  argument  by  a  series  of  detailed 
facts. 

The  more  minutely  we  examine  the  combina- 
tions of  matter  generally,  viewing  them  in  the  light 
of  such  matter  as  is  conscious  for  our  own  ex- 
perience, the  more  evident  does  it  become,  he  says, 
that  it  possesses  in  all  its  particles  the  two  attri- 
butes of  consciousness,1  as  we  ourselves  know  it — 
that  is  to  say,  thought  and  feeling.  He  proceeds 
to  deal  with  the  case  of  feeling  thus: 

Whatever  may  be,  he  says,  the  ultimate  consti- 
tution of  atoms,  there  is  one  fact  with  regard  to 
them  which  experiment  renders  certain.  This  is 
"  their  chemical  affinity,  or  the  proportion  in  which 
they  combine  with  the  atoms  of  other  elements"; 
and,  in  considering  this,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the 
conclusion  that  their  so-called  affinity  is  really  such 
in  a  true  psychological  sense,  and  represents  a 
subjective  "inclination"  as  well  as  an  objective 
movement.  "  Every  shade  of  inclination, ' '  he  says, 
"from  the  completest  indifference  to  the  fiercest 
passion,  is  exemplified  in  the  chemical  relation  of 
the  various  elements  to  each  other,"  just  as  it  is 
"  exemplified  in  the  relations  between  human  beings 
and  more  especially  in  the  relations  between  the 
sexes";  and  this  last  observation  leads  him  to  a 
most  luminous  illustration  of  his  meaning.  The 

1  Professor  Haeckel  restricts  consciousness  in  its  full  sense  to 
the  higher  animals;  but  he  attributes  rudimentary  perception 
and  sensation  to  all  material  particles. 
13  181 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

individual  human  being  only  begins  as  an  indi- 
vidual when  the  maternal  ovum  has  been  fertilized 
by  the  male  element.  This  microscopic  act  is 
accomplished  by  the  impetuous  entry  of  the  latter 
into  the  former,  which  immediately  closes  round 
it,  folding  it  in  a  strict  embrace:  and  in  it,  says 
Haeckel,  we  find  the  most  singular  and  startling 
likeness  to  two  other  orders  of  phenomena,  one 
higher  and  one  lower  than  itself.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  resembles,  and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  to 
rehearse,  all  the  love-drama  that  will  be  enacted 
in  the  life  of  the  future  man :  and  on  the  other,  it 
reproduces,  in  a  more  definite  form,  "the  impetu- 
osity observable  in  the  union  of  one  atom  of 
oxygen  to  two  of  hydrogen,  in  the  formation  of  a 
molecule  of  water."  All  three  processes  are  mani- 
festly in  their  essence  one.  They  are  not  only 
processes  of  movement,  but  processes  of  strong 
emotion.  Nor  is  this  all.  The  analogy  thus  re- 
vealed between  the  organic  combinations  and  the 
inorganic  is  far  from  ending  with  such  single  acts 
as  these.  The  human  being,  as  it  is  built  up  in 
the  uterus,  is  a  growing  combination  of  cells,  the 
individual  "  inclinations  "  of  all  of  which  jointly  give 
rise  to  another  in  which  all  are  absorbed  and  unified. 
Here  again  we  have  an  organic  phenomenon  to 
which  the  inorganic  world  presents  us  with  an  exact 
counterpart.  The  "affinities"  or  "inclinations"  of 
a  pair  of  combining  atoms  coalesce  into  a  molecular 
"  inclination  "  different  from  that  of  either.  Molec- 
ular "inclinations"  in  their  turn  combine  again, 

182 


PRE ARRANGEMENT  AND  PURPOSE 

becoming  changed  in  the  process,  as  molecular 
structures  form  themselves  of  greater  and  ever 
greater  perplexity,  the  evolution  of  all  so  -  called 
lifeless  substances  being  a  psychological  evolution 
no  less  than  a  physical.  Thus  all  the  phenomena  of 
matter  are,  according  to  Professor  Haeckel,  theo- 
retically statable  in  terms  of  inclination  or  feeling ; 
and  if  we  could  only  find  a  unit  of  feeling  as  exact 
as  our  unit  of  force,  the  formation  of  a  molecule  of 
water,  the  growth  of  a  rose  or  a  potato,  and  a  man's 
love  for  a  woman,  could  all  be  reduced  to  one  com- 
mon denominator. 

The  same  reasoning,  he  says,  is  equally  appli- 
cable to  thought ;  and  his  argument,  though  in  this 
case  it  is  not  so  full  as  in  the  former,  proceeds  by 
means  of  reference  to  illustrations  of  the  same 
kind.  He  here  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  when 
different  cells  combine,  though  they  unite,  as  before 
stated,  to  form  a  single  "inclination"  that  is  com- 
munal, the  individual  inclination  of  each  at  the 
same  time  still  persists.  This,  he  says,  is  dis- 
tinctly traceable  in  the  embryo.  The  embryonic 
cells  reveal  two  orders  of  movement,  and  two 
orders  of  inclination  or  feeling,  that  correspond 
to  them.  We  trace  in  the  first  place  the  communal 
feeling  of  the  whole ;  but  through  this,  and  under 
this,  we  are  able  to  trace  also  the  separate  feeling 
of  each  cell  as  an  individual.  And  if  this  holds 
good  of  feeling,  it  will  hold  good  of  thought  also; 
and  in  the  brain,  as  the  complex  organ  of  thought, 
there  will  be  similarly  two  orders  of  thinking. 

183 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

There  will  be  the  communal  thinking  of  all  the 
co-ordinated  parts;  and  there  will  be  the  private 
thinking  of  each  individual  particle.  Hence  it  will 
follow  that  the  brain  in  its  corporate  capacity  can 
no  more  claim  to  be  the  sole  seat  of  thought  than 
a  parliament,  made  up  of  individually  wise  men, 
could,  as  a  parliament,  claim  to  be  the  sole  seat 
of  wisdom.  The  senators,  when  dispersed,  and 
absorbed  in  other  social  combinations,  would  still 
carry  their  own  wisdom  with  them ;  and  the  brain- 
particles,  however  combined,  would  still  think  on 
their  own  account.  Such,  in  general  terms,  is 
Professor  Haeckel's  reasoning ;  and,  though  he  has 
not  yet  expressed  it  himself  in  very  orderly  form, 
he  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  with  regard  to  the  con- 
clusion which  he  draws  from  it.  This  he  sums 
up  in  words  which  he  adopts  from  two  other  writers. 
It  is  as  follows:  "The  mind  of  man  is  only  the 
highest  development  of  a  mental  process,"  or  "a 
perceptive  process,"  which  is  "universal";  "and 
to  this  universal  process  thought  itself  is  reducible." 
In  setting  out,  then,  on  our  inquiry  into  the 
intelligible  character  of  the  universe,  we  have 
already  taken  "the  first  step  that  costs,"  under  the 
auspices  of  that  very  science  which  condemns  our 
quest  as  illusory.  We  have  already  passed  into 
the  region  which  Spencer  declared  to  be  unknow- 
able. We  have  already  been  justified  in  our 
argument  that  not  only  mind  in  the  abstract,  but 
specific  qualities  of  mind  as  possessed  by  man 
himself,  exist  in  the  matter  out  of  which  man's 

184 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

mind  has  been  evolved.  This  matter  so  far  re- 
sembles ourselves,  that  it  thinks  and  feels  as  we 
do,  that  it  experiences  likes  and  dislikes,  and  adjusts 
its  movements  in  accordance  with  these  feelings. 
"The  various  chemical  elements,"  says  Professor 
Haeckel,  "perceive  qualitative  differences  in  other 
elements,  undergo  pleasure  or  revulsion  at  contact 
with  them  and  execute  their  movements  on  this 
ground."  But  at  this  point  our  cicerone  suddenly 
stops  short.  To  go  thus  far  is  science,  he  says. 
To  go  further  is  anthropomorphism.  Let  us  con- 
sider more  precisely  what  the  point  to  which  he 
has  brought  us  is. 

He  exhibits  the  universe  as  thinking  and  feeling 
everywhere,  but  as  doing  so  disconnectedly,  and 
in  separate  parts,  only.  Atoms,  molecules,  and 
cells  all  feel  and  think.  So  also  do  molecular 
and  cellular  groups.  Up  to  a  certain  point  the 
units  of  thought  and  feeling  units  combine  into 
larger  units,  and  think  and  feel  as  one.  But  the 
largest  of  such  composite  units  are  of  very  insignif- 
icant size.  They  never  themselves  combine  into 
a  unit  larger  than  themselves.  The  mental  or- 
ganization of  the  universe  ends  with  their  separate 
existences;  and  there  is  between  them  no  mental 
link  whatever.  The  universe,  considered  as  mind, 
is  a  mere  disorderly  pluralism. 

A  halt  so  arbitrary  at  a  conclusion  so  lame  as 
this,  and  so  contrary  to  the  analogy  relied  on  in 
carrying  it  as  far  as  it  goes,  will  suggest  to  many 
people  as  its  sole,  what  is  doubtless  its  partial, 

185 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

explanation,  a  judicious  fear  on  the  part  of  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  that  he  will,  if  he  goes  much  further, 
be  getting  dangerously  near  to  a  God.  And  it  is, 
indeed,  if  tested  by  his  own  avowed  principles,  no 
less  unwarrantable  than  it  seems.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  certain  method  in  it.  This  halt  on  his  part 
logically  implies,  and  in  a  sense  it  logically  follows 
from,  a  curious  incompleteness,  of  which  he  is  quite 
unconscious  himself,  in  his  conception  of  the  main 
fact  on  which  his  argument  turns. 

When  dealing  with  the  combinations  of  matter 
by  which  the  ultimate  psychological  units  build  up 
their  thoughts  and  inclinations  into  larger  psycho- 
logical unities,  he  limits  his  conception  of  combina- 
tion to  combinations  of  actual  contact,  such  as 
those  of  the  gas-atoms  in  forming  a  molecule  of 
water,  or  those  of  the  spermatozoon  and  ovum  in 
initiating  a  human  life.  There  are  two  other  forms 
of  combination  which  altogether  escape  him,  and 
by  which,  when  they  are  taken  into  account,  the 
whole  meaning  of  his  truncated  doctrine  is  ampli- 
fied, and  indeed  transformed.  One  of  these  is  the 
combination  that  results  from  the  various  specific 
positions  which  various  bodies  at  a  distance  assume 
in  relation  to  one  another — such  as  that  of  three 
bodies  which  form  the  points  of  a  triangle.  The 
other  is  the  combination  that  results  from  the 
action  of  bodies  at  a  distance,  by  means  of  the 
ether  or  some  analogous  medium.  "Through  the 
eight  thousand  miles  of  the  earth's  substance,"  says 
Spencer,  "each  molecule  at  the  antipodes  affects 

186 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

such  molecule  of  the  pound-weight  I  hold.  .  .  . 
Each  portion  of  matter,  in  its  dealing  with  remote 
portions,  treats  all  intervening  portions  as  if  they 
did  not  exist;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  it  recog- 
nizes their  existence  with  scrupulous  exactness  in 
its  direct  dealings  with  them."  All  these  com- 
binations, then,  if  Professor  Haeckel's  reasoning 
be  sound,  must  necessarily  have  their  precise 
psychological  equivalents,  no  less  than  the  tactile 
combinations  of  sexual  life,  or  of  chemistry.  The 
moment  we  realize  this  we  shall  see  that  his  own 
conclusion,  which  he  himself  arrests  at  an  early 
embryonic  stage,  begins  to  develop  and  expand 
itself,  like  the  Effreet  set  free  from  the  bottle,  and 
stretch  out  its  arms  in  a  way  of  which  Professor 
Haeckel  has  no  prevision. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  follow  in  any  detail  the 
argument  that  has  just  been  indicated  through 
its  intermediate  stages.  It  will  be  enough  to  illus- 
trate these  by  one  or  two  simple  examples,  hav- 
ing reference,  firstly,  to  feeling,  and,  secondly,  to 
thought  in  the  universe. 

With  regard  to  the  question  of  feeling  in  non- 
organic  nature,  Professor  Haeckel  has  shown  true 
insight — let  me  say  this  once  again — in  exhibiting 
the  phenomena  of  sexual  life  as  a  clew  to  it.  We 
will,  therefore,  take  another  of  these  phenomena  of 
a  kind  much  wider  than  those  to  which  he  insists 
on  confining  himself.  We  will  take  the  effect  of 
the  seasons  on  the  amative  instinct  generally. 
This  is  specially  notable  in  the  case  of  those  species 

187 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

which  breed  only  at  special  times  of  the  year ;  but 
it  is  to  a  certain  extent  perceptible  in  the  case  of 
all.  When  the  spring  comes— 

"  Omnibus  incutiens  blandum  per  pectora  amorem  " — 
when  the  bird 
"Makes  its  voice  heard  among  a  blaze  of  flowers" — 

not  only  does  a  lovelier  iris  tremble  on  the  dove's 
breast,  but  the  thoughts  of  the  young  man  turn 
towards  love  also. 

"  Cras  amet  qui  nunquam  amavit,  quique  amavit  eras 
amet. 

To-morrow  let  him  love  who  has  never  loved 
before ;  he  who  has  loved  before,  let  him  love  again 
to-morrow."  Such  is  the  burden  of  the  Roman 
song  of  spring.  To  what,  then,  is  this  influence  of 
the  spring  due  ?  It  must  necessarily  be  due,  in  the 
first  place,  to  some  special  physical  process;  and 
further,  if  all  physical  processes  are,  as  Professor 
Haeckel  says  they  are,  always  accompanied  by 
some  corresponding  "perception,"  it  must  neces- 
sarily have  also  some  special  psychological  equiv- 
alent. What,  then,  we  ask,  is  this  equivalent 
likely  to  be?  It  cannot  be  the  "thought"  or 
"inclination"  of  the  individual  particles  which  are 
involved  in  it;  because  the  particles,  taken  in- 
dividually, or  combined  under  other  conditions, 
exercise  no  influence,  such  as  that  which  is  here 

188 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

referred  to.  Nor  can  it  be  the  psychological  equiv- 
alent of  any  special  chemical  aggregate  which  is 
formed  in  the  spring  and  is  absent  at  other  sea- 
sons; for  no  one  pretends  that  any  such  aggregate 
exists.  The  phenomenon  is  evidently  one  which 
has  many  far-reaching  causes;  but,  whatever  they 
are,  they  must  include  a  multiplicity  of  relations 
between  particles  or  bodies  widely  remote  from  one 
another,  and  yet  related  in  so  specific  a  way  as  to 
produce  between  them  a  single  psychological  fact. 
If,  as  Professor  Haeckel  says,  there  are  "  cell-souls," 
which  are  the  products  of  molecules  in  contact, 
there  must  also  be  a  season-soul,  which  is  the  prod- 
uct of  molecules  in  relation ;  or  rather  a  love  -  soul 
in  nature  whose  scope  is  wider  still. 

A  fact,  perhaps,  yet  more  striking,  and  allied 
closely  to  the  above,  is  the  part  played  by  the  sun 
in  the  production  of  life  on  the  earth.  "Of  such 
life,"  says  Professor  Haeckel,  "the  first,  the  oldest, 
and  the  chief  cause  is  sunlight."  Here,  in  addition 
to  the  cell-souls  of  the  male  and  female,  we  have 
a  third  agency,  which  originates  millions  of  miles 
away,  and  which  directly  or  indirectly  takes  part  in 
the  process.  Evidently,  then,  though  Professor 
Haeckel  fails  to  see  it,  there  must,  between  this 
third  agency  and  the  living  plasm  that  is  affected 
by  it,  be  an  emotional  relationship  analogous  to 
that  which  exists  between  the  male  cell  and  the 
female,  and  in  virtue  of  which  they  come  together ; 
and  if  this  be  so,  we  have  at  once  a  ligament  of 
feeling  which  extends  from  the  earth  to  the  middle 

189 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

of  the  solar  system.  Nor  need  we  stop  here.  We 
might  show,  if  the  occasion  required  it,  that,  accord- 
ing to  Professor  Haeckel's  principles,  the  earth,  as 
a  whole,  is  emotional  in  its  polar  magnetism ;  that 
molecular  "inclinations"  repeat  themselves  on  a 
vast  scale  in  molar,  and  that  each  planet,  like  each 
chemical  element,  has  a  molar  "inclination"  of  its 
own,  and  pursues  its  course  —  or,  as  Professor 
Haeckel  would  say,  "executes  its  movements"- 
in  accordance  with  it.  Thus  we  only  have  to 
pursue  Professor  Haeckel's  own  line  of  reasoning, 
and  a  web  of  emotions  is  thrown  over  the  whole 
universe. 

Let  us  next  take  the  case  of  thought  in  the  sense 
of  logical  reason,  put  to  speculative  uses  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  practical  uses  on  the  other.  Devel- 
oped thought,  as  taking  place  in  the  human  mind 
—this  has  been  set  forth  several  times  already,  but 
it  is  necessary  here  to  insist  on  it  once  again  - 
consists,  according  to  scientific  and  metaphysical 
philosophy  equally,  of  two  processes.  One  of  these 
is  the  reception  by  the  cerebral  sense-organs  of 
impressions  from  the  outer  world.  The  other  is 
the  arrangement  of  these  by  some  different  and 
active  agency.  For  the  metaphysician  this  agency 
is  a  stranger  from  some  other  sphere;  but  for  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  and  for  ourselves  it  is  a  function 
of  the  cerebral  thought-organs,  these  organs  being 
as  much  a  part  of  the  universe  as  the  food  is  which 
a  man  eats,  and  without  which  he  could  not  think 
at  all.  Just,  then,  as  the  objects  of  thought  are  the 

190 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

impressions  which  the  universe  makes  on  us,  so  the 
thought  which  arranges  them  is  a  criticism  which, 
by  organs  of  one  kind,  the  universe  makes  on  itself 
as  presented  to  us  by  organs  of  another  kind.  It 
can,  in  short,  be  nothing  else  but  the  universe 
becoming  humanly  conscious  of  the  principles 
to  which  its  own  order  is  due.  These  principles, 
moreover,  divide  themselves  into  two  classes — the 
statical  and  the  dynamical,  one  relating  to  the 
conditions  of  all  change  or  movement,  the  other 
to  the  actual  results  of  it,  and  in  human  thought 
there  are  two  divisions  which  correspond  to  them. 
Speculative  thought  corresponds  to  the  statics  of 
the  universe,  while  practical  thought  is  actually  a 
portion  of  its  applied  dynamics. 

For  an  example  of  thought  put  to  speculative 
uses,  we  will  turn  to  the  propositions  of  mathe- 
matics. One  example  will  be  enough  for  us.  The 
three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right 
angles.  For  propositions  of  this  kind  metaphysical 
thinkers  have  claimed  a  quality  of  universal  cer- 
tainty wanting  to  all  others.  At  any  rate  they 
are  certain;  and  for  science,  the  reason  of  their 
certainty  is,  that  they  are  conscious  recognitions  in 
the  abstract  of  facts  which  are  universal  in  the 
concrete,  and  which  inhere  universally  in  the  con- 
stitution of  external  things.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
a  fact  such  as  the  equality  of  the  three  angles  of  a 
triangle  to  two  right  angles  is  not  embodied  only 
in  molecular  particles  which  are  in  contact,  and  the 
little  sporadic  aggregates  with  which  Professor 

IQT 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Haeckel  deals;  but  is  embodied  just  as  completely 
in  the  configurations  of  all  the  stars,  as  it  is  in  the 
angles  of  a  triangular  brass  bell-crank.  If,  then, 
our  own  recognition  of  these  facts  as  absolute 
truths  has  its  psychological  equivalent  in  the  con- 
crete facts  themselves,  the  entire  universe  must  be 
a  nexus  of  thoughts  of  a  like  kind,  which  hold  it 
together  in  its  actual  unbroken  order. 

From  speculative  thought  let  us  pass  on  to  prac- 
tical ;  and  here  again  Professor  Haeckel  shall  guide 
us.  "  The  various  chemical  elements, ' '  he  says,  "  per- 
ceive qualitative  differences  in  other  elements,  un- 
dergo pleasure  or  revulsion  at  contact  with  them, 
and  execute  their  movements  on  this  ground." 
Now,  without  pausing  to  dwell  on  the  fact  that,  if 
they  perceive  qualitative  differences,  they  must  be 
able  to  calculate  quantitative  differences  also,  let 
us  give  our  attention  to  the  statement  that  the 
various  movements  which  they  execute  are  exe- 
cuted by  them  as  a  consequence  of  such  perception. 
This  means  that  the  elements  not  merely  "per- 
ceive" pleasure,  but  are  aware  of  it  as  an  object  of 
desire  before  it  is  realized  as  a  fact,  and  direct  their 
movements  reasonably  with  the  definite  view  of 
attaining  it.  Here  we  have  thought  in  its  prac- 
tical form — thought  which  is  applied  to  action,  and 
which  makes  action  possible;  and  for  thought  of 
this  kind  the  ordinary  name  is  purpose. 

Now  let  us  ask  Professor  Haeckel,  let  us  ask 
any  sensible  man,  whether,  if  purpose  is  exhibited 
by  the  chemical  elements — by  microscopic  particles, 

192 


PREARRANGEMENT    AND    PURPOSE 

when  they  form  their  microscopic  alliances — it  is 
possible  to  suppose  that  it  is  confined  to  parochial 
little  incidents  such  as  these,  and  that  none  of  the 
larger  phenomena  which  they  manifestly  unite  to 
produce,  represent  in  their  turn  any  larger  purpose 
likewise,  in  which  the  little  purposes  coalesce,  and 
by  which  they  are  mentally  co-ordinated,  instead 
of  being  left  like  an  army  without  a  general — that 
there  is  thought  and  purpose  in  a  molecule  when 
it  seeks  or  avoids  another,  and  none  in  the  planets 
when  they  circle  round,  and  avoid,  the  sun?  To 
suppose  this  is,  on  Professor  Haeckel's  principles, 
ludicrous.  If  there  is  purpose  in  the  little  phe- 
nomena, there  must  be  purpose  in  the  larger  also ; 
and  when  this  is  admitted,  there  is  but  one  step 
more  to  take — namely,  to  merge  all  this  hierarchy 
of  feelings,  thoughts,  and  purposes  in  one  universal 
mind  which  shall  unify  and  co-ordinate  them  all. 
And  in  taking  this  last  step,  we  may  leave  Professor 
Haeckel  behind.  We  have  here  principles  for  our 
guidance,  to  which  he  is  apparently  a  stranger,  but 
with  which  we  have  made  ourselves  familiar  in 
the  chapters  which  precede  this. 

The  conclusion  there  elucidated  was  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  principles  of  science,  the  universe 
as  a  connected  whole,  and  as  such  a  whole  only, 
must  always  have  contained  in  itself  every  one  of 
its  evolved  products  —  among  these  in  especial 
being  the  minds  and  characters  of  men ;  and  the 
question  towards  which  we  have  been  working  our 
way  is  as  follows: — Is  it  in  virtue  of  its  possessing 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

any  quasi-human  character  that  the  universe  from 
the  beginning  has  so  arranged  its  particles  that 
human  beings  and  their  thoughts,  and  the  whole 
course  of  their  history,  should  necessarily  emerge, 
and  necessarily  take  place  one  day?  Accepting, 
then,  the  arguments  of  the  most  celebrated  expo- 
nent of  the  doctrine  that  the  universe,  as  a  whole, 
can  have  no  character  at  all  in  any  way  congruous 
to  man's,  we  have  seen  that  these  very  arguments, 
if  only  they  are  taken  strictly,  compel  us  to  impute 
feelings  and  thoughts  and  purposes,  essentially 
resembling  in  kind  those  which  we  know  ourselves, 
to  an  ever  -  widening  range  of  natural  facts  and 
processes:  and  now  our  original  principle  to  which 
we  have  been  working  back,  comes  forward  (as 
it  were)  to  meet  us,  and  shows  us  that  the  universe 
as  a  whole,  of  which  all  these  processes  are  parts, 
is  already  logically  expectant  of  an  explanation 
which  shall  give  us  its  character  in  terms  of  the 
human  minds,  of  which  it  is  itself  the  cause,  and 
of  each  of  which  its  totality  is  the  necessary  and 
exact  equivalent. 

Let  us  put  this  conclusion  in  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent form.  If  a  blind  man  were  to  hear  a  human 
voice  addressing  him,  if  the  voice  responded  to  his 
questions,  or  entered  into  a  long  discussion  with 
him,  or  read  out  to  him  the  whole  of  Professor 
Haeckel's  works,  saying,  '  Such  are  my  own  reason- 
ings; such  are  the  facts  collected  by  me,"  the  blind 
man  would  naturally  infer  that  the  voice,  what- 
ever its  origin,  represented  an  intelligence  of  the 

194 


PREARRANGEMENT   AND    PURPOSE 

same  kind  as  his  own.  We  reason  with  regard  to 
the  universe  in  a  precisely  similar  way,  and  on 
literally  the  same  grounds.  For  if  the  universe  is, 
as  according  to  Spencer  and  Haeckel  it  must  be,  the 
sole  and  sufficient  cause  of  every  human  intelligence, 
and  if  each  intelligence  only  is  what  it  is,  and  only 
does  what  it  does,  because  the  universe  is  what  it  is, 
and  does  what  it  does  likewise,  and  always  was  what 
it  was  and  always  did  what  it  did,  the  universe  it- 
self, as  a  whole,  actually  is  the  intelligence  which 
the  human  being  manifests,  and  the  human  being, 
as  distinct  from  it,  is  nothing  more  than  its  in- 
strument. 

Thus  the  very  science  which,  as  expounded  by 
Spencer  and  Professor  Haeckel,  has  oppressed  re- 
ligious thought  from  the  days  of  Darwin  onward, 
which  is  denounced  by  its  enemies  as  the  grossest 
form  of  materialism,  which  is  in  reality  the  strictest 
form  of  determinism,  and  for  all  practical  purposes 
is  the  completest  form  of  atheism,  is  found  to  hatch 
itself,  under  the  incubation  of  its  own  principles, 
into  the  reaffirmation  of  a  Power  to  which,  since  it 
feels  and  purposes,  no  other  name  is  applicable  than 
that  of  a  living  Deity. 


V 

DIFFICULTIES   CONNECTED  WITH   THE   MORAL 
CHARACTER   OF  THE   COSMIC    INTELLI- 
GENCE, AND  THE  RELATION  TO 
IT   OF  THE    INDIVIDUAL 
HUMAN   MIND 

IP  any  one  is  inclined  to  think,  however,  that 
when  we  have  reached  this  point  we  have  won 
our  way  back  to  the  Deity  of  religious  theism, 
he  is  in  much  too  great  a  hurry.  If  a  nation  wants 
a  prime-minister,  it  wants  not  merely  a  man ;  but 
it  wants  a  man  of  a  very  specific  character.  Re- 
ligious theism  makes  the  same  demand  of  its  God ; 
and  the  cosmic  Deity,  as  revealed  by  our  argument 
thus  far,  exhibits  a  character,  the  reading  of  which 
is  beset  by  the  most  formidable  difficulties.  What 
these  difficulties  are  can  be  most  easily  indicated 
by  means  of  a  simple  supposition  which,  if  it  were 
correct,  would  do  away  with  them. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  the  only  individual 
life  produced  by  the  whole  universe  had  been  that 
of  Augustine,  whose  character  found  utterance  in 
the  words,  "  My  God,  thou  hast  made  me  for  thy- 
self, and  I  am  restless  till  I  rest  in  Thee."  The 
character  of  the  universe,  in  this  case,  need  not  be 

196 


PARADOXES    OF    COSMIC    PURPOSE 

hard  to  conjecture.  We  might  reasonably  imagine 
it  answering  this  cry  from  its  own  heart  in  words 
like  those  which  the  Gospel  according  to  the  He- 
brews ascribes  to  the  Father  on  the  occasion  of 
the  Son's  baptism — "Thou  art  He  in  whom  I  have 
my  rest  likewise,  and  for  thy  coming  I  have  waited 
in  all  the  prophets."  Or  any  other  type  of  charac- 
ter we  might  take  equally  well.  We  might  take 
mere  lovers  of  beauty,  such  as  Phidias,  Keats,  or 
Shelley ;  and  if  there  were  nothing  in  the  character 
of  each  to  conflict  with  its  distinctive  traits,  we 
might  similarly  from  the  character  of  the  part  infer 
that  of  the  causal  Whole. 

The  actual  state  of  the  case  is,  however,  the 
exact  reverse  of  this.  We  have  to  deal  not  with 
one  man,  but  with  many ;  and,  instead  of  conform- 
ing, or  even  approximating  to  any  single  type, 
their  characters  exhibit  antagonisms  of  a  kind  so 
profound  and  startling  that,  since  all  must  be 
equally  referable  to  the  same  living  Intelligence, 
it  is  difficult  to  conjecture  what  moral  character,  if 
any,  can  belong  to  an  Intelligence  which  expresses 
itself  in  such  a  number  of  contradictory  ways. 
This  Intelligence  must,  from  all  time,  so  have  ar- 
ranged the  universe,  that  not  only  saints  and 
martyrs,  philosophers,  heroes,  poets,  shall  think  its 
thoughts,  feel  with  it,  and  will  its  will,  but  that 
every  kind  of  savage  and  lecherous  monster  shall 
feel,  think,  will  with  it  also.  The  universe,  in 
short,  appears  to  us  as  a  sort  of  cosmic  Briareus, 
with  a  hundred  heads,  instead  of  a  hundred  hands, 
14  197 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

each  head  talking  a  different  language,  and  its  eyes 
regarding  us  with  a  look  of  different  meaning. 
Here  are  the  eyes  of  love;  here  are  the  eyes  of 
hatred;  one  mouth  whispers  a  prayer,  its  neighbor 
mouth  is  blaspheming;  yet  the  blood  in  the  brains 
of  all  of  them  comes  from  the  same  heart.  What 
can  the  heart  be  that  ministers  to  so  mad  a  discord  ? 

It  is  idle  to  make  light  of,  or  seek  to  ignore,  this 
difficulty;  nor  for  us,  who  are  in  search  of  a  rea- 
sonable vindication  of  religion — of  religion  in  the 
sense  which  we  are  here  giving  to  the  word — does 
this  difficulty  stand  alone.  Even  if  we  should 
succeed  in  harmonizing  that  multitude  of  moral 
contradictions  which  seems  to  make  a  chaos  of  the 
moral  character  of  the  Deity,  there  yet  remains 
the  question  of  the  moral  nature  of  man.  The 
very  argument  which  has  carried  us  from  man's 
mind  to  the  mind  of  the  all-causing  Cause,  only 
does  so  by  identifying  the  lesser  mind  with  the 
larger,  and  thus  seems  to  extinguish  that  freedom 
of  life  and  will,  a  belief  in  which  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  at  the  root  of  man's  higher  activities,  and 
alone  gives  the  human  drama  any  meaning  or 
interest. 

These  two  difficulties  will  be  our  subject  in  the 
following  Book.  If  we  can  find  our  way  out  of 
the  first — namely,  the  difficulty  of  the  Divine 
Character — we  shall  already  have  gone  far  towards 
seeing  our  way  out  of  the  second. 

Meanwhile,  it  may  seem  to  some  that  we  have, 
with  regard  to  the  first,  done  nothing  but  render 

198 


PARADOXES    OF    COSMIC    PURPOSE 

the  riddle  of  existence  darker  by  drawing  the  veil 
from  the  face  of  the  "utterly  inscrutable"  as  we 
have  done.  It  may  seem  that  Spencer's  Unknow- 
able, or  his  indefinite  homogeneities,  or  the  naked 
Chance  of  Haeckel,  are  preferable  to  a  Deity  such 
as  that  which  we  have  just  been  contemplating. 
But  it  has  over  these  one  advantage  at  all  events. 
Such  a  Deity,  unlike  the  Chance  of  one  philosopher, 
or  the  unresponsive  Mystery  of  the  other,  exhibits 
itself  through  the  hieroglyphics  of  matter  as  a 
living,  though  perplexing,  mind ;  and  we  thus  have 
a  difficulty  which  we  can  interrogate,  instead  of  a 
difficulty  which  is  dumb.  It  may  turn  out  to  be 
a  difficulty  to  which  interrogation  will  find  some 
answer. 


BOOK    IV 


CURRENT    EVASIONS   OF   THE    DIFFICULTIES    IN- 
HERENT   IN    ALL    THEISTIC    BELIEF 

ONE  of  the  great  faults  of  the  clergy  in  all  apolo- 
getic argument  is  their  tendency  to  jump  at  their 
conclusions,  before  the  conclusions  are  within  reach. 
They  are  like  men  who,  having  been  led  to  believe 
that  there  is  a  treasure  in  a  field  near  Thurso,  set 
forth  from  London  in  the  Scotch  express  to  find  it ; 
but  who  skip  from  their  carriages  the  moment  the 
train  first  stops,  and  begin  to  sing  "  Eureka!"  in  the 
cloak-room  at  Grantham  station. 

If  any  one  with  this  clerical  tendency  should  have 
followed  our  arguments  thus  far,  an  excellent 
opportunity  is  offered  him  here  of  indulging  it. 
We  have  thus  far  been  arguing  exclusively  on  the 
principles  of  that  mechanical  science,  according 
to  which  all  existence  is  a  single  necessary  system 
— or  as  the  clergy  delight  to  call  it,  a  system  of 
pure  materialism.  Since,  then,  we  have  shown 
that  even  materialism  of  the  crudest  kind,  which 
begins  with  the  atheism  of  an  ignorant  and  blas- 
pheming boy,  is  bound,  by  the  mere  process  of 
reasoning  on  its  own  principles,  to  end  in  the  rec- 

203 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

ognition  of  a  purposive  God  of  some  sort,  such  a 
reader  may  say  that  nothing  remains  to  be  done 
but  return  to  that  religious  dualism  which  he  has 
only  hypothetically  abandoned,  and  all  the  diffi- 
culties at  present  confronting  us  will  disappear. 
If  even  materialism  is  obliged  to  believe  and 
tremble,  let  us  leap  back  into  dualism,  and  we  shall 
at  once  love  and  adore. 

But  the  reader  who  is  more  patient  can  easily 
be  led  to  see  that  such  leaps  as  this,  even  if  .we 
take  them,  do  nothing  to  achieve  their  object. 
They  carry  us  into  a  different  atmosphere;  but  as 
soon  as  we  have  grown  accustomed  to  it,  we  see 
the  old  difficulties  confronting  us,  changed  in 
nothing  but  their  dress,  like  the  sacerdotal  pater 
familias  when  he  is  decked  out  in  his  chasuble. 
Let  us  plunge  as  deep  as  we  may  into  dualism, 
spiritualism,  theism,  or  any  other  ism  we  please; 
let  us  leave  science  as  far  as  we  may  behind  us; 
and  we  still  are  confronted  by  the  problems  of  good 
and  evil,  of  fate  and  freedom — problems  which  Job 
and  Augustine  tried  in  vain  to  solve — problems 
which  are  older  than  monotheistic  thought  itself. 

A  few  moments'  reflection  will  show  us  that  this 
is  so.  '  If  God,  said  Augustine,  be,  as  He  is,  omnip- 
otent; if  God  made  souls,  as  He  did;  and  if  souls 
sin,  as  they  do,  how  is  it  possible  by  reason  to 
escape  from  the  obvious  inference  that  the  real 
sinner  is  God,  the  souls  being  his  agents  only? 
What  is  this  but  the  question  that  was  just  now 
suggested  to  us  by  a  thinking  and  purposing  uni- 

204 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

verse  expressing  itself  in  thinking  organisms,  each 
of  whose  various  groups  is  at  moral  war  with  the 
others?  Again,  for  the  scientific  thinker,  a  dif- 
ficulty even  more  precise  is  that  which  is  suggested 
by  the  process  of  human  evolution.  The  great 
moral  difficulty  which  human  evolution  presents  to 
us  is  not  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  a  belief  in 
divine  purpose.  Belief  in  such  purpose  is  not  the 
difficulty,  but  the  source  of  it.  The  difficulty  is 
that  evolution,  as  embodying  purpose,  is  apparently 
inconsistent  with  any  purpose  that  is  benevolent, 
or  even  just,  to  the  individual.  The  stronger  thrive 
and  survive;  the  weaker  pine  and  perish.  But 
theology  has  been  always  familiar  with  the  same 
difficulties  also.  The  righteous  suffer,  the  horn  of 
the  unrighteous  is  exalted.  Towers  of  Siloam  fall 
on  unoffending  victims.  The  men  of  Sodom,  who 
would  have  repented  could  they  only  have  heard 
Christ,  were  not  allowed  by  God  so  much  as  a 
chance  of  doing  so.  God  makes  one  vessel  to 
honor,  another  vessel  to  dishonor;  and  men  are 
born  morally  blind  for  no  sin  of  their  own.  Evolu- 
tionary science  does  nothing  but  make  these  dif- 
ficulties definite,  and  exhibit  them  as  parts  of  one 
all  -  comprehending  system.  By  doing  this,  how- 
ever, though  it  does  nothing  to  alter  their  character, 
it  forces  them  on  our  attention  in  a  clearer  and  more 
obtrusive  way,  and  compels  us  to  look  for  some 
answer  to  them  of  a  straightforward  and  courageous 
kind.  Theology  up  to  the  present  time,  though 
it  has  not  been  able  to  disregard  them,  has,  while 

205 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

professing  to  meet  them,  really  done  nothing  more 
than  hide  them  away  under  a  number  of  pseudo- 
solutions,  which  may  distract  attention  from  a 
perplexity,  but  does  nothing  to  remove  its  cause. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  this  method  is 
practised  in  perfect  good  faith,  and  that  those 
who  practise  it  are  the  first  people  to  be  taken 
in  by  it,  we  might  call  it  the  method  of  theological 
conjuring,  or  —  to  speak  even  more  plainly  —  the 
method  of  theological  card  -  sharping,  and  I  shall 
pause  here  to  illustrate  briefly  its  application  to 
the  two  difficulties  with  which  we  are  now  con- 
fronted—  namely,  those  of  reconciling  with  the 
admitted  facts  of  existence  the  goodness  of  an 
omnipotent  God,  and  the  freedom  of  dependent 
man. 

Of  all  the  arts  of  the  conjurer,  or  the  man  who 
plays  tricks  with  cards,  the  most  important  is  that 
of  distracting  the  spectator's  attention,  and  by 
fixing  it  on  operations  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  performance,  make  him  fancy  that  one 
thing  has  happened,  when  what  has  really  hap- 
pened is  another  thing.  In  the  same  way  the 
practitioners  of  the  method  now  referred  to  engage 
to  defend  or  demonstrate  certain  religious  doctrines, 
for  which  in  the  course  of  the  argument  they  sub- 
stitute something  else,  and  persuade  themselves 
and  others  that  the  substitute  is  the  "genuine 
article." 

We  will  begin  with  the  application  of  this  method 
to  the  vindication  of  God's  goodness;  and  first,  by 

206 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

way  of  introduction,  we  will  take  a  very  rudimen- 
tary, though  a  very  frequent,  example  of  it. 

This  argument,  which  aims  at  proving  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Deity,  rests  on  the  alleged  impossibility 
of  accounting  for  the  beginnings  of  organic  life 
apart  from  the  hypothesis  of  some  special  divine 
interference.  Why,  ask  apologists,  do  atheistic 
men  of  science  insist  on  maintaining  that  the  living 
has  been  evolved  out  of  the  lifeless?  Simply,  as 
one  of  them  out  of  many  says  with  severe  solemnity, 
because  the  men  of  science  must,  if  they  do  not 
maintain  this  thesis,  "admit  the  existence  of  a 
living  Creator,"  "to  deny  Whom  is  a  crime  of  the 
most  heinous  malice  possible  to  human  act."  Now 
what  is  the  implication  latent  in  language  such  as 
this,  which  gives  it  a  sound  so  edifying  ?  Is  it  that 
if  we  do  not  maintain  that  living  matter  has  been 
evolved  from  lifeless,  we  are  bound  to  believe  in, 
and  adore,  the  God  of  Christian  theism — the  all- 
righteous,  the  all-wise,  all-just,  the  all-benevolent. 
But  the  argument  itself,  even  if  we  admit  its  sound- 
ness, carries  with  it  in  reality  no  such  implication 
as  this.  The  alternative,  so  far  as  the  case  is  here 
presented,  is  not  between  a  belief  in  spontaneous 
generation  and  a  belief  in  a  special  act  of  the  all- 
good  God  of  theism,  but  between  spontaneous  gen- 
eration and  the  act  of  a  purposive  intelligence  of 
some  sort,  who  might,  for  anything  which  the  argu- 
ment shows  to  the  contrary,  be  a  careless  or 
malicious  devil  just  as  well  as  a  divine  Father ;  for 
the  various  adaptations  of  the  human  organism  to 

207 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

its  environment,  on  which  theologians  dwell  with  so 
much  delight,  would  have  been  equally  necessary, 
if  man  was  to  exist  at  all,  no  matter  whether  he  were 
made  by  a  good  Power  or  a  bad  one. 

Here  we  have  a  trick  played  ostensibly  with 
two  cards,  one  marked  with  the  words  "spon- 
taneous generation,"  the  other  with  the  word 
"intelligence";  but  while  these  two  are  being 
shuffled  backward  and  forward,  a  third  —  a  theo- 
logical ace,  marked  with  the  words  "an  Intelli- 
gence which  is  all -benevolent " — is  produced  from 
the  sleeve  of  the  apologist,  is  adroitly  substituted 
for  the  second,  and  is  at  the  end  of  the  performance 
forced  on  the  delighted  victim. 

Let  us  now  see  how  this  legerdemain  of  sub- 
stitution is  performed  in  a  manner  somewhat  more 
elaborate.  I  will  illustrate  this  by  reference  to  a 
small  volume  which,  owing  to  the  position  of  its 
writer,  is  one  of  unusual  interest.  Its  writer  is 
the  celebrated  Romanes,  the  friend  and  coadjutor 
of  Darwin,  and  the  volume  in  question  has  been 
edited  and  published  posthumously  by  the  Bishop 
of  Birmingham,  as  a  contribution  to  Christian 
apologetics. 

No  one  ever  abandoned  the  religious  conception 
of  existence  more  completely  than  Romanes  did 
during  the  active  period  of  his  life,  in  deference  to 
the  science  whose  methods  he  so  well  understood. 
But,  always  religious  in  temperament,  he  experi- 
enced during  his  closing  years  a  strong  desire  to 
return  to  the  beliefs  which  he  had  so  completely 

208 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

lost;  and  he  set  himself  to  go  over  the  speculative 
ground  once  more,  with  a  view  to  refuting  the 
logic  which  he  had  himself  formerly  used.  His 
two  main  objects  were,  firstly,  to  show  that  there 
is  nothing  in  science  which  conflicts  with  the 
hypothesis  of  an  intelligent  First  Cause;  and, 
secondly,  that  there  is  nothing  in  science  which 
conflicts  with  the  hypothesis  that  this  First  Cause 
is,  in  the  Christian  sense,  good. 

As  to  the  first  of  these  two  conclusions,  it  is 
needless  for  us  to  say  anything  here;  since,  except 
for  the  fact  that  his  arguments  are  curiously  incon- 
clusive, and  aim  merely  at  showing  that  the 
hypothesis  of  a  supreme  intelligence  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  science,  instead  of  showing  that  science 
demands  it,  this  conclusion  coincides  with  our  own. 
All  that  concerns  us  here  is  his  treatment  of  con- 
clusion number  two — the  conclusion  that  we  can, 
in  spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary,  rea- 
sonably assure  ourselves  that  the  supreme  intel- 
ligence is  benevolent.  His  argument  here  divides 
itself  into  two  main  sections,  one  of  which  deals 
with  evil  as  exemplified  in  individual  experience; 
the  other  with  the  caprice,  or  unjust  partiality, 
which  is  seemingly  attributable  to  a  God  who,  if 
He  has  really  revealed  Himself  supernaturally,  has 
revealed  the  means  of  salvation  to  so  small  a  por- 
tion of  mankind.  Both  these  lines  of  argument  are, 
we  shall  find,  carried  out  by  means  of  that  trick  of 
substitution  on  which  we  have  just  been  comment- 
ing. In  each  case  we  shall  see  that,  though  the 

209 


RECONSTRUCTION    OP    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

writer  establishes  something,  this  is  not  the  prop- 
osition which  he  really  is  engaging  to  establish, 
but  one  which  has  merely  enough  superficial  like- 
ness to  it  to  enable  him  to  palm  off  a  spurious 
article  as  the  genuine  one. 

As  has  been  observed  already  in  the  opening 
chapter  of  this  volume,  the  kind  of  goodness  which 
theism  ascribes  to  God  is  a  goodness  which  has 
for  its  object  the  spiritual  welfare  of  man.  If  it 
cannot  be  proved  that  man  is  the  object  of  God's 
special  solicitude,  then,  for  the  theist,  nothing  has 
been  proved  at  all.  And  that  such  is  the  case, 
Romanes  himself  admits.  He  admits  also  that  the 
desired  proof  is  beset  with  apparent  difficulties. 
He  recognizes  that  in  the  case  of  man,  no  less 
than  in  that  of  the  animals,  evolution  has  been 
the  march  of  the  strong  over  the  dying  and  the 
wounded  weak,  moral  evil  in  man's  case  being 
added  to  mere  physical  suffering:  and  how,  he 
asks,  can  this  process,  "  the  results  of  which  are  so 
terrible,"  be  justified  as  the  work  of  a  God  whose 
purposes  are  supremely  good?  Having,  however, 
thus  stated  the  question  fairly,  how  does  he  pro- 
ceed to  answer  it  ? 

With  regard  to  evil,  as  experienced  by  the  in- 
dividual, he  proceeds  thus.  Ostensibly  taking 
the  word  evil  in  its  double  sense  of  physical  evil 
and  moral,  he  sets  himself  to  deal  with  evil  in  the 
first  of  these  two  senses  only — namely,  that  of  mere 
pain  or  suffering.  He  reproduces  the  old  and 
familiar  argument  that  suffering  is  a  means  by 

2IO 


CURRENT    EVASION    OP    DIFFICULTIES 

which  character  may  be  ennobled  (which  it  doubt- 
less is  in  some,  though  by  no  means  in  all  cases), 
and  then,  having  done  this,  he  asks  us  by  implica- 
tion to  assume  that  he  has  justified  the  existence 
of  moral  evil  also.  He  entirely  closes  his  eyes  to 
the  evil  which  is  the  real  difficulty  for  the  evo- 
lutionist —  namely,  the  moral  disabilities,  or  the 
doom  of  moral  perversion,  resulting  from  congeni- 
tal defects  in  the  organisms  of  the  victimized  in- 
dividuals, or  analogous  defects  in  the  environment 
which  has  surrounded  them  like  a  second  womb. 
A  long  and  painful  illness  may  chasten  the  temper 
of  a  saint ;  but  how  can  a  depraved  nervous  system, 
congenital  lust  or  ferocity,  a  congenitally  callous 
conscience,  or  stunted  intellectual  powers,  afford 
those  who  are  not  saints  any  help  in  attaining 
sanctity?  This,  which  is  the  main  difficulty,  re- 
mains just  where  it  was.  The  problem  of  evolution, 
as  related  to  the  good  of  the  individual,  has  not 
only  not  been  solved,  but  it  has  not  even  been 
touched. 

In  other  words,  he  begins,  as  it  were,  with  ex- 
hibiting a  card  bearing  the  words  "  Evil,  physical 
and  moral,"  which  he  is  ostensibly  going  to  use  in 
his  game.  He  then  hides  this  card,  and  puts  in 
its  place  another,  which  bears  the  words  "  Physical 
evil "  only.  He  goes  through  his  performance  with 
this  card  which  has  been  substituted;  and  then  at 
the  critical  moment  slips  back  the  original  one, 
pretending  to  himself  and  his  friends  that  he  has 
been  working  with  it  all  the  time. 

211 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Let  us  now  turn  to  those  wider  aspects  of  the 
difficulty,  which  seem  to  be  inseparable  from  a 
belief  in  a  supernatural  revelation,  and  which  arise 
from  the  fact  that  such  a  revelation,  if  it  ever  took 
place,  took  place  so  late  in  the  world's  history, 
and  even  now  has  extended  its  benefit  to  so  small 
a  proportion  of  mankind.  We  shall  find  that 
Romanes  has,  in  his  treatment  of  these  aspects  of 
the  matter,  deluded  himself  by  a  repetition  of  the 
same  kind  of  procedure. 

The  fact,  he  says,  that  Christ  came  so  late  in 
the  world's  history  forms  the  main  modern  objec- 
tion to  the  miraculous  Christian  system,  and  was, 
he  adds,  the  objection  to  it  which  weighed  most 
strongly  with  Darwin.  "It  is  remarkable,"  he 
proceeds,  to  the  delight  of  his  episcopal  editor, 
"  that  Darwin  of  all  men  should  have  been  worsted 
by  this  fallacious  argument,  for  it  has  received  its 
death-blow  from  the  doctrine  of  evolution  itself; 
that  is  to  say,  if  evolution  has  been  the  natural 
method  of  causation.  Christ  could  not  have  ap- 
peared at  any  earlier  date,  without  having  violated 
the  method  of  evolution."  Thus,  he  proceeds  to 
argue,  a  study  of  evolution  shows  us  that,  if  the 
fact  of  the  bodily  man  being  the  product  of  an 
evolutionary  survival  does  not  disprove  the  fact 
that  God  purposed  his  bodily  organism,  the  fact 
that  the  spiritual  man — the  man  fit  for  the  bless- 
ings of  revelation  —  was  "winnowed  out"  in  the 
same  gradual  way,  positively  proves  the  fact  that 
God  purposed  to  save  man's  soul,  and  provide  it 

212 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

with  the  means  of  salvation  as  soon  as  man  was 
fit  to  receive  them. 

Now  here  is  a  conclusion  which,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  is  plausible.  It  labors,  however,  under  the 
same  defect  as  the  other.  It  is  made  to  look  like 
the  conclusion  which  the  apologist  wants  to  es- 
tablish; but  it  is  in  reality  something  totally  dif- 
ferent. It  is  made  to  look  so  by  a  playing  with  the 
two  meanings  of  "man,"  similar  to  the  previous 
playing  with  the  two  meanings  of  "evil."  The 
word  "man"  may  mean  either  the  individual,  or 
it  may  mean  the  type  or  race.  Now  what  theism 
asserts,  and  what  the  apologist  wants  to  prove,  is 
that  God  is  primarily  good  not  to  the  race,  but  to 
the  individual.  The  theistic  God  is  represented 
as  addressing  the  individual  thus :  "  I  have  made 
you  in  order  that  you  should  be  perfect,  as  I,  your 
maker,  am  perfect.  My  love  for  you  is  so  vast 
that  the  whole  end  of  creation  might  be  nothing 
else  than  the  welfare  of  your  single  soul."  Here 
is  the  conception  of  God  which  Romanes  sets  out 
to  vindicate;  and  what  is  the  conclusion  which 
emerges  at  the  end  of  his  game  of  logic  ?  The  con- 
clusion that  God  cares  for  the  individual  human 
being  only  as  Napoleon  cared  for  the  individual 
soldiers  whom  he  valued  as  means  to  the  victories 
which  required  their  unregarded  death. 

And  this  conclusion  Romanes  actually  mistakes 
for  the  other.  Nor  in  doing  so  is  he  at  all  excep- 
tional. His  editor,  the  Bishop,  had  done  the  same 
thing  before  him.  If  the  world  is  inclined  to  doubt 
is  213 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

God's  scheme  of  revealed  salvation,  because  it  has 
been  so  slowly  developed,  and  has  even  now  been 
withheld  from  the  great  majority  of  mankind,  the 
Church,  says  Bishop  Gore,  has  an  answer  which  is 
as  complete  as  it  is  short  and  gentle.  "You  are 
ignoring,"  answers  the  Church,  "  the  gradualness  of 
the  Spirit's  methods."  This  is  the  argument  of 
Romanes,  tucked  into  a  clerical  nutshell;  and  the 
world's  answer  to  the  Church  is  hardly  less  laconic : 
"  We  are  not  ignoring  the  gradualness  of  the  Spirit's 
methods  at  all.  The  gradualness  of  the  methods  is 
precisely  what  we  criticise  and  arraign." 

So  much,  then,  for  the  method  of  theological 
conjuring,  as  applied  to  the  task  of  rendering  the 
divine  goodness  credible.  Let  us  now  consider  it 
as  applied  to  the  task  of  rendering  credible  the 
moral  freedom  of  man. 

Here  we  have,  to  use  our  previous  simile,  a  trick 
played  not  with  two  cards  but  with  three.  What 
those  who  play  it  set  out  to  prove  is  that,  whenever 
a  man  sins,  and,  consequently,  deserves  hell-fire,  he 
is  just  as  free  not  to  sin  as  to  sin.  But  the  word 
"free"  is  used  in  two  other  senses  besides  this — 
namely,  as  meaning  that  the  man  is  free  from  the 
physical  constraint  of  others,  and  also  as  meaning 
that  he  is  free  from  any  constraint  whatever  except 
what  is  imposed  on  him  by  his  own  temperament 
or  character.  The  first  connotes  the  freedom — the 
distinguishing  kind  of  freedom—  which  the  apolo- 
gist of  religion  pledges  himself  and  endeavors  to 
vindicate;  but  what  he  does  is  to  shuffle  all  the 

214 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

three  freedoms  together  —  ostentatiously  to  make 
light  of  the  second,  ostentatiously  to  defend  the 
third,  and  then,  by  a  further  shuffle,  to  pretend  that 
he  has  proved  the  first. 

This  remarkable  feat  is  being  performed  over 
and  over  again  by  apologists  at  the  present  day, 
bad,  good,  and  indifferent.  One  example  of  it, 
which  shall  be  taken  from  a  distinguished  source, 
will  be  enough  for  us.  It  occurs  in  an  Essay  which 
Professor  Lloyd  Morgan — a  cultivated  and  careful 
thinker,  and  Head  of  a  well  -  known  college  —  has 
written  in  answer  to  the  determinism  of  Professor 
Haeckel.  "  You  may  at  first, ' '  he  says,  summing  up 
his  previous  arguments,  "find  some  difficulty  in 
reconciling  human  responsibility  with  the  deter- 
minism demanded  by  science.  .  .  .  But  on  what 
does  the  determinism  of  science  rest?  Surely  on 
observed  uniformity.  On  what  does  it  rest  in  the 
field  of  conduct  ?  Surely  on  the  uniform  activity 
of  a  given  character.  Just  in  so  far  as  my  character 
forms  a  coherent  system,  just  in  so  far  as  my 
freedom  lies  in  the  absence  of  determination  by 
anything  outside  myself,  can  you  hold  me,  that  is 
my  character,  responsible  for  its  acts." 

Now  here,  no  doubt,  we  have  freedom  of  a  cer- 
tain kind;  but  it  is  not  the  kind  that  the  would- 
be  believer  wants.  Granting  that  we  are  free  in  a 
sense,  because  our  characters  determine  our  actions, 
he  wants  to  be  assured  that  we  are  free  because  WE 
determine  our  characters.  But  this  is  precisely  the 
doctrine  that  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  suppresses, 

215 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

because  it  is  inconsistent  with  "the  determinism 
demanded  by  science."  Let  us  suppose  that 
Professor  Lloyd  Morgan  dismisses  two  butlers  in 
succession — one  for  breaking  the  teacups  because 
he  is  half -blind;  the  other  for  stealing  the  tea- 
spoons because  he  is  disposed  to  do  so.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  Professor,  while  dismissing,  would 
excuse,  and  not  blame  the  former,  because  his 
breakages,  though  not  "  determined  by  anything 
outside  himself,"  were  due  to  characteristics  in  him- 
self which  had  been  determined  for  him  by  his 
birth  and  circumstances.  He  is,  therefore,  profes- 
sionally, but  not  morally,  blamable.  But  if  butler 
number  two,  when  caught  in  the  act  of  theft,  were 
to  excuse  himself  by  saying,  "  I  stole  because  my 
character  is  a  coherent  system,  and  the  propensity 
to  steal  has  been  ingrained  in  me  from  my  earliest 
childhood,"  would  the  Professor  think  the  excuse 
valid?  According  to  his  own  principles,  he  is 
certainly  bound  to  do  so;  for  "the  determinism 
demanded  by  science"  will  allow  of  no  single  mo- 
ment, from  the  time  when  the  butler  was  a  foetus 
to  the  moment  of  his  detected  theft,  when  his 
character  was  not,  just  like  the  other  butler's 
blindness,  determined  by  the  constitution  which  he 
inherited,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  his  fate 
enclosed  him.  We  can  only  say  that,  if  the  excuse 
of  the  thief  is  valid,  nothing  is  inexcusable,  or, 
rather,  nothing  requires  excusing:  moral  responsi- 
bility, as  distinct  from  legal  or  professional,  is  a 
dream:  and  the  value  of  a  freedom  which  means 

216 


CURRENT    EVASION    OF    DIFFICULTIES 

no  more  than  this,  that  we  are  free  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  own  characters,  may  be  further 
seen  by  reflecting  on  the  equally  obvious  proposi- 
tion that  nobody  is  ever  free  to  do  anything  else. 
At  all  events,  as  a  tradesman  would  say,  this  is 
not  the  "brand"  of  freedom  which  the  would-be 
believer  asks  for,  and  which  alone  he  wants  to  get : 
and  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan,  and  the  numbers 
who  argue  like  him,  are  merely  playing  a  trick 
which  aims  at  producing  the  impression  that  a 
card  is  the  ace  of  diamonds  when  really  it  is  the 
knave  of  spades. 

Such  are  the  methods,  and  such  are  the  only 
methods,  employed  by  theologians  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  in  their  efforts  to  deal  with  the  two  funda- 
mental difficulties  which,  whether  stated  in  terms 
of  mind  or  matter,  stand  in  the  way  of  a  reasonable 
assent  to  theism.  What,  then,  is  the  moral  to  be 
drawn  from  this  fact  ?  It  is  not  that  theologians, 
as  a  class,  have  been  exceptionally  incompetent 
thinkers,  but  that  they  have  attempted  a  feat  which 
is  in  its  nature  impossible.  In  other  words,  the 
two  difficulties  in  question  are  such  that  man's 
mind  being  what  it  is,  no  direct  or  formal  solution 
of  them  is  within  their  reach ;  and  the  utmost  that 
the  keenest  intellect  which  attempts  such  a  solution 
can  do,  is  to  disguise  the  difficulties  by  some  more 
or  less  skilful  trickery. 

Is,  then,  the  task  of  overcoming  them  hopeless  ? 
In  the  following  chapters  both  difficulties  will  be 
reconsidered — firstly,  the  difficulty  involved  in  a 

217 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

belief  in  the  divine  Goodness;  secondly,  that  in- 
volved in  the  belief  in  man's  personal  freedom: 
and  it  will  be  shown  that  a  method  of  approaching 
both,  other  than  the  method  of  direct  attack,  is 
open  to  us,  by  means  of  which  both,  instead  of 
being  theoretically  annihilated,  may,  for  the  practi- 
cal reason,  be  robbed  of  their  apparent  force. 


II 

THE    PRACTICAL    EVIDENCES    FOR,    AS    OPPOSED 

TO    THE    DIFFICULTIES    INHERENT    IN, 

A    BELIEF    IN    THE    GOODNESS 

OF   THE    DEITY 

LET  us  state  once  more  in  those  scientific  terms 
which  throughout  this  volume  have  been  employed 
by  us,  the  difficulties  inseparable  from  a  belief  in 
the  Goodness  of  the  Universal  Cause. 

Men  are,  as  beings  who  feel  and  reason,  the 
products  of  a  cosmic  Intelligence,  who,  when  de- 
scribed in  terms  of  matter,  appears  as  a  principle 
of  Determinism,  but  when  expressed  in  terms  of 
mind,  appears  as  a  principle  of  Determination,  and 
who  has  necessarily  purposed  that  men  should  be 
what  they  are.  Whatever,  therefore,  exists  in 
men,  exists  also  in  the  cosmic  Cause.  Now  every- 
where in  human  beings  are  found  qualities  and 
ideas  of  Goodness;  therefore  Goodness  must,  in 
some  sense,  be  a  property  of  the  cosmic  Cause 
likewise.  But  in  human  beings,  besides  qualities 
and  ideas  of  Goodness,  there  exist  ideas  and  quali- 
ties of  negative  and  positive  evil,  always  in  con- 
flict with  the  former.  If,  therefore,  in  a  sense  that 

219 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

is  morally  intelligible  to  ourselves,  we  are  bound 
to  conclude  that  the  cosmic  Cause  is  good,  we  are 
bound  by  the  same  reasoning  to  conclude  that  it 
must  be  evil  also;  for  the  evil,  no  less  than  the 
good,  must  from  all  time  have  been  purposed  by  it ; 
and  Judas  must  have  been  in  the  womb  of  the 
nebula  no  less  than  John.  We  have,  then,  or  we 
seem  to  have,  two  sets  of  counterbalancing  facts, 
like  equal  weights  lying  in  opposing  scales,  each  of 
which  robs  the  other  of  all  moral  significance,  and 
entirely  shuts  us  out,  for  all  practical  purposes, 
from  any  intelligible  relationship  with  the  Power 
to  which  we  owe  our  existence. 

Is  it  necessary  for  us  to  accept  this  meaningless 
equilibrium  as  a  fact  ?  Such  is  our  question ;  and 
our  first  step  towards  answering  it  is  not  to  look 
directly  for  any  answer  at  all,  still  less  for  a  com- 
plete answer;  but  to  consider  whether  the  facts, 
as  ordinary  observation  gives  them  to  us,  indicate 
any  probability  that  a  satisfactory  answer  exists. 
In  other  words,  we  must  set  ourselves  to  consider 
first,  whether  the  appearances — the  data  of  our 
problem — are  really  quite  what  they  seem  to  be. 
Is  the  equilibrium  between  moral  good  and  evil 
really  so  complete  that  the  inferences  to  be  drawn 
from  the  latter  nullify  those  which,  apart  from  it, 
we  should  draw  naturally  from  the  former?  Is 
there  not  something  to  indicate  that  the  weights 
in  the  opposing  scales,  equal  though  they  seem  in 
bulk,  have  different  specific  gravities? 

When  we  begin  our  inquiry  in  this  tentative  way, 
220 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

we  shall  at  once  be  rewarded  by  a  certain  af- 
firmative answer.  We  shall  find  that  the  inference, 
drawn  from  the  facts  of  human  goodness,  that  the 
character  of  the  cosmic  Intelligence  must  be  one 
of  goodness  also,  has  elements  of  probability  which 
are  wanting  altogether  in  the  opposite  inference, 
drawn  from  the  facts  of  evil. 

These  elements  of  probability  are  two.  We  are 
already  familiar  with  one  of  them.  We  have  not 
yet  touched  on  the  other.  Let  us  first  briefly 
reconsider  the  former. 

The  belief  that  God  is  good  is  a  belief  which, 
apart  from  the  evidence  of  facts  taken  in  detail, 
possesses  a  practical  quality  which  the  belief  that 
He  is  evil  or  indifferent  does  not.  It  is,  as  has 
been  shown  already  in  Book  II.  of  the  present 
volume,  a  practically  constructive  principle.  Races 
and  nations,  in  proportion  as  they  explicitly  or 
implicitly  hold  it,  develop  in  the  direction  of  what 
by  all  men  is  recognized  and  valued  as  civilization. 
All  the  finer  adornments  and  higher  pursuits  of 
life  spring  from  it,  and  cluster  round  it,  like  flowers 
from  a  living  stem.  Philosophy  and  speculative 
science  are  supplied  by  it  with  their  main  motive. 
It  gives  vitality  to  the  higher  ambitions  of  nations. 
The  higher  forms  of  art  would  without  it  have  no 
existence.  There  would  have  been  no  statues  of 
Pallas,  and  no  pictures  of  Mary;  nor  would  life 
have  ever  become  that  system  of  personal  judg- 
ments— of  practical  and  moral  aesthetics — which 
great  art  reflects. 

221 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Nor  is  this  all.  Man's  purely  sociological  morals, 
as  we  saw  in  a  former  chapter,  which  sum  them- 
selves up  in  the  instinct  which  we  call  conscience, 
have  their  origin  in  the  exigences  of  gregarious 
life,  and  are  not  directly  dependent  on  anything 
beyond  experience.  But  the  belief  here  in  ques- 
tion, that  the  cosmic  Intelligence  is  good — that  it 
feels  with  man,  and  wills  that  social  development 
to  which  man  is,  in  any  case,  driven  by  his  nature 
and  his  terrestrial  circumstances,  connects  itself 
with  the  voice  of  conscience  in  a  very  remarkable 
way,  and,  though  not  dictating  its  judgments,  in- 
vests them  with  a  new  rationality.  It  connects  the 
will  to  live,  as  existing  in  the  social  organism — 
which,  taken  by  itself,  the  individual  might  afford 
to  despise — with  the  will  of  the  universal  Power 
to  which  the  organism  is  itself  due,  and  thus  in- 
vests the  moralities  of  purely  utilitarian  conduct 
with  a  dignity,  an  importance,  and  an  obligation, 
which  may  be  neglected  indeed,  but  which  cannot 
be  denied.  The  belief,  in  short,  that  the  cosmic 
Intelligence  is  good,  is  a  sort  of  intellectual  euchar- 
ist,  by  which  the  universe  is  made  one  with  the 
activities  of  the  individual  man. 

That  such  is  the  case  will  become  yet  more  ap- 
parent when  we  consider  the  results  that  will,  or 
that  will  not,  follow  from  a  belief  that  the  cosmic 
Intelligence  is  evil,  or  else  indifferent. 

In  the  first  place,  we  shall  see  that  it  would  be 
altogether  impossible  to  imagine  any  fruitful  con- 
nection, such  as  that  which  has  been  just  described, 

222 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

between  the  cosmic  Intelligence  and  the  con- 
structive activities  of  man,  if  man  believes  this 
Intelligence  to  be  hostile  to,  or  even  careless  of, 
himself.  Evil  or  indifference  in  this  objective 
sense,  as  attributed  to  the  Power  by  whose  purpose 
man  has  been  made,  can,  in  relation  to  all  man's 
social  efforts  to  better  himself,  be  only  a  disin- 
tegrating— it  cannot  be  an  integrating — principle. 
A  creed,  then,  according  to  which  this  Power  is 
evil  or  indifferent,  cannot  be  made  to  supply  us 
with  any  theory  of  social  life,  whose  results  would 
be  otherwise  than  intolerable  to  the  common-sense 
of  mankind.  And  the  same  observation  applies 
to  those  personal  virtues  or  qualities  by  which 
the  morally  civilized  man  is  distinguished  from  the 
moral  savage.  It  has  been  shown  already,  and 
we  need  not  repeat  the  argument,  that  every  rec- 
ognition of  Goodness,  Truth,  or  Beauty,  as  things 
which  are  good  in  any  absolute  sense,  is  a  recogni- 
tion of  a  Goodness  in  the  universe,  with  which 
man  is  able  to  ally  himself;  but  if  the  existence  in 
the  universe  of  any  such  Goodness  is  denied  by  us, 
Goodness,  Truth,  and  Beauty,  as  sought  for  by 
civilized  men  in  high  emotion,  in  knowledge,  in  art, 
in  conduct,  lose  the  colors  for  which  they  were 
mainly  valued,  like  a  stained-glass  window,  when 
the  light  no  longer  shines  through  it. 

And  the  same  thing  is  shown  in  an  interesting 
way  by  a  fact  which  seems  at  first  sight  to  tell  in 
the  other  direction.  There  are,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, certain  phases  of  civilization  which  the 

223 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

denial  of  absolute  Goodness  not  only  does  not  de- 
stroy, but  actually  calls  into  very  pleasant  existence. 
These  are  the  civilizations  of  limited  social  circles, 
in  which  the  evasion  of  ordinary  principles  is 
reduced  to  a  fine  art  in  practice,  and  accompanied 
in  conversation  by  a  ripple  of  appropriate  cynicism. 
But  such  denials  of  Goodness  on  the  part  of  certain 
persons,  even  when  not  directly  provoked  by  the 
exaggerated  affirmations  of  others,  are  in  them- 
selves essentially  parasitic.  Unfortunately,  these 
live  on  the  affirmations  which  they  attack;  and 
can  only  continue  to  flourish  because  their  attack 
is  but  partially  successful.  Cynicism,  regarded  as 
a  civilized  form  of  thought,  only  holds  itself  upright 
by  the  aid  of  the  contradictions  which  it  provokes. 
Take  the  contradictions  away,  and  it  lies  on  the 
ground  helpless. 

We  thus  see  that,  even  if  the  evil  in  human  life 
appears  not  merely  to  balance,  but  actually  to  out- 
weigh the  good,  the  belief  that,  in  spite  of  appear- 
ances, the  character  of  the  cosmic  Intelligence  is 
indicated  by  the  good  more  truly  than  it  is  by  the 
evil,  is,  by  its  practical  consequences,  invested 
with  an  order  of  probability,  with  which  no  ac- 
cumulation of  evidence  could  avail  to  invest  the 
other.  Civilization  is  a  concrete  fact  appealing 
to  the  practical  judgment.  It  stands  essentially 
for  a  growth  and  unfolding  of  human  nature,  which 
is  just  as  unequivocal  in  its  character  as  the  growth 
and  unfolding  of  a  tree;  and  the  practical  judg- 
ment of  mankind  is  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  value  of 

224 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

it.  If,  then,  we  find  that  a  belief  in  the  goodness 
of  the  cosmic  Intelligence  is  invariably  associated 
with  this  orderly  and  unmistakable  growth,  and  is 
obviously  a  principal  source  of  the  vital  activities 
that  are  involved  in  it ;  and  if  we  find,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  belief  opposed  to  this  has  the  con- 
trary effect  of  causing  the  growth  to  cease,  the 
leaves  to  wither,  and  the  forming  fruit  to  shrivel, 
the  presumption  is  inevitable  that  the  affirmative 
belief  is  in  harmony  with  some  cosmic  fact,  while 
the  negative  belief  is  not.  We  can  at  present  speak 
of  a  presumption  only ;  but  even  a  presumption  in 
favor  of  cosmic  Goodness  is  at  all  events  an  advance 
on  that  stupid  and  hopeless  bewilderment  with 
which  the  balance  of  good  and  evil  at  first  sight 
affects  us. 

All  these  arguments,  as  the  reader  will  recollect, 
have  been  urged  at  length  in  our  second  book  al- 
ready. But  there  yet  remains  another  which, 
though  closely  associated  with  these,  I  have  thus 
far  refrained  from  considering,  reserving  it  for  the 
present  moment.  Hitherto  we  have  dwelled  only 
on  the  effects  of  religious  belief,  as  manifesting 
themselves  indirectly  in  the  general  quality  of  life. 
Conscious  religion  itself  has  been  carefully  passed 
over.  We  must  now  make  good  our  omission. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  Protestant 
Christianity  is  at  a  great  disadvantage  in  one  re- 
spect as  compared  to  Roman.  While  the  doctrines 
of  Rome  are  enunciated  by  a  definite  external 
authority,  which  says  to  all  who  accept  it  precisely 

225 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  same  things,  the  doctrines  of  Protestantism 
are  supposed  in  the  last  resort  to  derive  their  au- 
thority from  the  spiritual  experiences  of  the  in- 
dividual; which,  it  is  added,  are  rarely  in  any  two 
cases  the  same,  and  never  can  have  any  authority 
for  any  one  but  the  individual  himself.  And  if, 
in  speaking  of  doctrines,  we  mean  doctrines  taken 
in  detail — doctrines  relating  to  the  interpretation 
of  Biblical  texts — to  faith,  to  works,  to  grace,  and 
to  the  manner  in  which  Christ  redeems  us — this 
criticism  is  just,  and  its  justice  becomes  more  ap- 
parent, in  proportion  as  the  experiences  in  question 
are  of  a  marked  and  exalted  character.  With 
Protestants,  they  reach  their  climax  in  the  re- 
markable crisis  called  conversion.  But  this,  as 
has  clearly  been  shown  by  Professor  William  James, 
is  not  a  phenomenon  by  any  means  confined  to 
Protestants.  It  is  generically  identical  with  the 
ecstasy,  not  only  of  Roman,  but  also  of  Mahome- 
tan saints,  of  Indian  ascetics,  and  of  the  pagan 
philosophers  of  Alexandria.  The  details  of  the 
experience  are  different  in  different  cases.  The 
Wesleyan  is  miraculously  certified  of  the  truth  of 
Wesley's  gospel.  The  Romanist  is  similarly  certi- 
fied of  the  truth  of  all  Roman  error.  Paul  is  ad- 
dressed by  Jesus;  the  Alexandrian  philosopher  by 
Apollo;  the  Mahometan  by  the  Blessed  Prophet. 
There  can,  therefore,  be  no  ratification  of  any  one 
creed  in  particular.  But  the  essential  features  of 
the  experience  are  in  all  cases  the  same.  There 
is  a  sense  of  absolute  union  with  an  infinite  and 

226 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

benignant  Power,  in  whom  all  discords  are  har- 
monized, all  doubts  set  at  rest,  and  the  soul  be- 
comes one  with  the  Goodness  at  the  heart  of  things. 
So  distinct  and  unanimous  as  to  this  are  the  rec- 
ords given  of  what  they  went  through,  by  persons 
of  hostile  creeds  and  of  distant  times  and  countries, 
that,  apart  from  the  local  color  due  to  their  special 
theologies,  they  might  have  been  written  by  the 
same  person,  and  relate  to  the  same  occurrence. 
In  proportion,  then,  as  the  moments  of  supposed 
religious  insight  fail  to  give  any  support  to  the 
doctrinal  implications  which  differentiate  them, 
their  bearing  on  the  general  conclusion  to  which 
they  all  point  is  significant. 

If,  however,  these  supreme  experiences  were  as 
rare  in  kind  as  they  admittedly  are  in  degree,  their 
significance,  such  as  it  is,  after  all  might  not  be 
great,  despite  their  wide  diffusion  in  respect  of 
time  and  place.  But  it  so  happens  that,  instead  of 
being  rare  in  kind,  they  merely  exhibit  in  concen- 
tration the  precise  convictions  and  feelings  which 
form  the  essential  content  of  civilized  religion  every- 
where ;  and  the  scientific  significance  of  religion,  re- 
garded as  a  general  fact,  cannot  be  better  illustrated 
than  by  reference  to  the  words  of  Spencer. 

"The  universality  of  religious  ideas,"  he  says, 
"their  independent  evolution  among  different 
primitive  races,  and  their  great  vitality,  unite  in 
showing  that  their  source  must  be  deep-seated 
instead  of  superficial.  .  .  .  Should  it  be  asserted 
that  the  religious  ideas  are  products  of  the  relig- 

227 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

ious  sentiment,  which,  to  satisfy  itself,  prompts 
imaginations  that  afterwards  it  projects  into  the 
external  world,  and  by-and-by  mistakes  for  realities 
.  .  .  there  still  arises  the  question — Whence  comes 
the  sentiment  ?  .  .  .  (It)  is  displayed  habitually  by 
the  majority  of  mankind,  and  occasionally  aroused 
even  in  those  seemingly  devoid  of  it.  It  must  be 
classed  among  human  emotions,  and  we  cannot 
rationally  ignore  it."  He  then  proceeds  to  discuss 
what  the  content  of  the  emotion  is,  and  reaches  the 
conclusion,  which  has  already  claimed  our  atten- 
tion, that,  springing  from  a  sense  of  our  impotence 
to  explain  the  origin  of  existence,  it  consists  of  a 
vague  awe  in  the  presence  of  a  blank  mystery.  A 
more  singular  example  of  the  complete  miscarriage 
of  analysis  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  history 
of  philosophic  speculation;  but  the  passage  just 
quoted  is  valuable  as  showing  that  scientific 
thought,  though  it  misses  the  meaning  of  religion, 
admits  that  it  must  mean  something. 

Let  us,  then,  pick  up  the  thread  of  the  argument 
which  we  just  now  dropped,  and  repeat  our  asser- 
tion of  what  the  content  of  religion  is.  It  is  es- 
sentially a  desire  for  an  infinite  First  Cause  of 
things,  which  is,  in  the  act  of  being  desired,  affirmed 
to  be  all-good;  and  is  not  a  mere  awe — it  is  essen- 
tially the  reverse  of  this — at  an  infinite  puzzle 
about  which  we  can  affirm  nothing.  If  Spencer 
had,  as  an  anthropological  student,  merely  con- 
sidered the  ease  with  which  children  are  taught  to 
pray,  and  what  prayer  obviously  means  for  them, 

228 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

he  need  hardly  have  looked  further.  He  would 
have  had  an  illustration  of  what  the  essence  of 
civilized  religion  is.  In  the  child's  case,  as  any 
nurse  could  have  told  him,  it  springs  from,  or  else 
it  responds  to,  a  sense  on  the  child's  part  that  the 
greatest  of  all  Powers  is  a  good  Power.  What  it 
is  for  the  child,  it  is  for  the  adult  also;  while  the 
quickness  with  which  children  grasp  an  idea  so 
abstract  as  that  of  an  unseen  Goodness  with  which 
they  can  hold  communion,  adjusting  their  whole 
system  of  emotions,  and  some  of  their  conduct  in 
accordance  with  it,  illustrates  more  clearly  perhaps 
than  any  other  fact  the  great  truth  on  which 
Spencer  himself  insists — namely,  that  human  relig- 
ion is  the  product  of  far-reaching  and  deep-seated 
causes,  and  that  there  must  be  something  which 
corresponds  to  it  in  the  general  constitution  of  the 
universe. 

Having,  then,  seen  what  in  reality  the  content 
of  religion  is,  we  are  in  a  position  to  adopt  this 
unanswerable  contention  of  Spencer's  and  apply 
it  to  a  purpose  of  which  he  himself  never  dreamed. 
But  before  we  put  the  final  point  to  our  moral,  let 
us  take  religion  once  more,  as  Spencer  himself 
understands  it,  and  consider  in  detail  the  process 
to  which  he  ascribes  its  origin.  All  the  contents 
of  human  consciousness,  he  reminds  us,  consist  of 
"accumulated  modifications  caused  by  the  inter- 
course of  the  organism  with  its  environment." 
Such  being  the  case,  then,  he  proceeds,  ever  since 
thought  began,  human  beings  have  been  finding 
16  229 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

out  by  experience  that  the  First  Cause  of  the  uni- 
verse is  unthinkable  by  the  human  mind,  and  re- 
ligion, he  says,  is  the  emotional  epitome  of  this  end- 
less series  of  disappointments. 

Now  admitting  that,  if  the  content  of  religion 
was  what  Spencer  takes  it  to  be,  this  theory  of  its 
origin  would  afford  a  sufficient  explanation  of  it,  let 
us  take  the  content  of  religion  as  we  have  seen  it 
to  be  in  reality,  and  consider  how  the  same  theory 
can  be  made  to  account  for  that.  Can  we  suppose 
that  men,  ever  since  men  were,  have  found  the 
workings  of  Nature  so  wholly  favorable  to  them- 
selves or  unfavorable  only  in  so  very  slight  a 
degree,  that  religion,  as  a  sense  of  the  goodness  of 
the  Power  behind  Nature,  is  merely  a  recognition, 
grown  instinctive,  of  a  fact  that  was  always 
obvious?  On  the  contrary,  experience,  from  the 
earliest  times  till  now,  has  presented  Nature  to 
man  as  the  source  of  such  unending  evils — such 
moral  injustice,  such  unmerited  and  random  pain — 
that  the  benefits  mixed  with  them  would,  were  the 
case  judged  superficially,  have  rather  afforded  a 
standard  by  which  Nature  might  be  condemned 
as  hostile,  than  ground  for  supposing  that  it  was 
absolutely  and  supremely  benevolent.  The  relig- 
ious sense,  then,  of  the  supreme  goodness  of  God 
cannot  be,  like  our  perception  of  the  necessity  of 
mathematical  truths,  an  hereditary  induction  from 
facts  to  which  Nature  offers  no  exceptions,  and  the 
contrary  of  which  is  inconceivable  because  there  are 
no  examples  of  it.  It  must  evidently,  therefore, 

230 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

have  some  deeper  source  than  experience,  if  we 
mean  by  experience,  our  conscious  "intercourse 
with  our  environment."  What,  then,  can  that 
source  be?  The  answer  to  this  question  probably 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  conscious  experiences  of 
the  brain,  and  its  conscious  thought  with  regard 
to  them,  which  are  all  that  thinkers  like  Spencer 
have  thus  far  had  in  view,  form  merely  a  part  of  the 
process  from  which  the  contents  of  consciousness 
are  derived,  much  of  the  work  being  done  by  brain- 
action  of  the  subconscious  kind:  but,  without 
pursuing  this  train  of  speculation  here,  it  will  be 
enough  to  observe  that,  be  its  source  what  it  may, 
the  emotional  affirmation  of  religion  that  the  uni- 
verse, or  the  Power  which  the  universe  represents, 
is  good,  cannot  have  been  the  outcome  of  any 
general  supposition  on  man's  part  that  the  uni- 
verse either  inflicts  on  him  no  evils  at  all,  or  at  all 
events  none  that  are  comparable  to  its  overwhelm- 
ing benefits,  for  man  has  always  been  bitterly  con- 
vinced of  the  contrary ;  but  must  be  a  response  to, 
or  an  adumbration  of,  some  principle,  which  lies 
below  this  rind  of  superficial  experiences,  and  which 
cannot,  therefore,  be  touched  by  the  fact  that  mod- 
ern science  has  exhibited  the  evils  of  such  experience 
as  part  of  some  general  system,  and  robbed  them  of 
the  aspect  which  they  once  had  of  constant  divine 
caprice. 

We  accordingly  arrive  at  the  somewhat  unex- 
pected result  that,  if  the  principles  of  science  are 
rigidly  applied  to  the  question,  and  religion,  in  the 

231 


RECONSTRUCTION    OP    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

sense  of  an  assertion  that  the  cosmic  Intelligence  is 
good,  is  explained  as  a  natural  product  of  the  "in- 
tercourse of  the  human  organism  with  its  environ- 
ment," the  force  of  this  assertion  becomes  not  less, 
but  greater,  when  the  various  facts  involved  are 
viewed  in  the  light  of  science,  than  it  is  when  they 
are  hidden  in  the  mists  of  a  vague  theology. 

The  general  conclusion,  then,  which  we  have 
thus  far  reached  is  as  follows.  If  all  deep-seated 
and  widely  spread  beliefs  have,  as  according  to 
strict  science  they  must  have,  some  equally  general 
fact  in  the  constitution  of  things  as  their  origin ;  if, 
moreover,  the  religious  assertion  that  the  supreme 
Principle  is  good  represents,  as  it  does,  one  of  the 
most  powerful  instincts  of  human  nature;  and, 
further,  if  this  assertion,  when  assumed  in  practical 
life,  results  in  what  by  all  is  recognized  as  human 
development,  while  the  denial  of  it  results  in  what 
is  similarly  recognized  as  decay  —  then,  in  spite 
of  the  difficulties  which  the  facts  of  evil  present  to 
us,  the  balance  of  probabilities  in  favor  of  the  re- 
ligious assertion  is,  from  some  points  of  view,  over- 
whelming. 

It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that,  in  assent- 
ing to  this  conclusion,  we  are  merely  defying  our 
difficulties;  in  no  sense  are  we  solving  them,  and 
although  they  may  be,  from  some  points  of  view, 
neutralized,  from  other  points  of  view  their  effects 
may  still  be  inhibitive.  We  must,  therefore,  set  our- 
selves to  face  the  difficulty  of  evil  directly,  and  ask 
how,  even  if  we  confidently  assure  ourselves  that 

232 


GOODNESS    AND    THE    COSMIC    MIND 

Omnipotence  is  wholly  good,  we  can,  in  presence 
of  the  fact  that  evil  actually  exists,  and  is,  as  a 
world-wide  system,  renewing  itself  every  moment, 
save  ourselves  from  a  contradiction  in  thought 
that  tears  reason  to  pieces,  and  urges  us  to  aban- 
don a  belief  which  renders  such  havoc  inevitable. 


Ill 

THE    PRACTICAL    SOLUTION    OF    THEISTIC    DIFFI- 
CULTIES  WHICH    ARE    INTELLECT- 
UALLY   INSOLUBLE 

THE  difficulty  of  honestly  believing  that  the  pur- 
posive Cause  of  all  things  can  be  absolutely  good, 
and  yet  purpose  the  existence  of  evil,  depends  on 
a  principle  in  the  absence  of  which  no  thought 
would  be  possible.  This  is  the  principle,  not  that 
nothing  can  be  true  which  transcends  thought 
altogether,  but  that  nothing  can  be  true  which, 
coming  within  the  sphere  of  our  thought  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  admit  of  being  definitely  stated, 
can  yet  be  stated  only  in  terms  that  contradict 
each  other.  If  we  empty  the  words  good  and 
evil  of  all  comprehensible  meaning,  to  assert  that 
evil  is  produced  by  omnipotent  Goodness,  is  not 
to  propound  a  difficulty.  It  is  simply  to  assert 
nothing.  The  difficulty  only  arises  when  good 
and  evil  are  understood  in  their  opposite  and 
familiar  senses  as  factors  of  our  own  experience. 
Then  the  assertion  that  evil  can  be  produced  by 
omnipotent  Goodness  becomes  intelligible  and  in- 
credible simultaneously,  like  the  classical  absurdi- 

234 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

ties  of  Euclid,  which  if  any  proposition  implies 
them,  show  that  such  a  proposition  must  be 
false. 

Such  at  least  is  the  case  seemingly;  but  is  the 
parallel  perfect?  Euclid's  absurdities  are  used 
by  him  in  the  following  way:  He  takes  a  case  in 
which  there  are  manifestly  but  two  alternatives, 
and  by  exhibiting  one  as  absurd  he  demonstrates 
that  the  other  must  be  true.  But  can  we  argue 
thus  in  relation  to  good  and  evil?  We  start  with 
assuming  a  purposive  Cause  of  some  kind,  who, 
having  produced  all  things,  has  produced  evil 
among  them.  The  question  is,  what  is  his  moral 
character?  Is  he  good,  bad,  or  indifferent?  One 
of  the  three  he  must  be.  We  reject  the  supposi- 
tion that  he  is  good,  for  this  we  recognize  as  absurd. 
There  are  only  two  other  alternatives.  Were  our 
problem  like  one  of  Euclid's,  our  answer  would 
necessarily  be  that  he  is  either  bad  or  indifferent. 
Let  us,  however,  try  these  in  succession,  we  shall 
find  that  they  are  both  of  them  no  less  absurd  than 
the  first.  If  a  Power  which  produces  evil  cannot  be 
wholly  good,  a  Power  which  produces  good  cannot 
be  wholly  evil;  while  to  call  a  Power  which  pro- 
duces two  warring  elements  indifferent  is  like  call- 
ing a  couple  indifferent  because  we  are  unable  to 
say  whether  the  wife  thrashes  the  husband  or  the 
husband  the  wife  most  soundly.  We  are,  in  fact, 
in  a  position  like  that  in  which  Euclid  would  have 
found  himself  if,  having  invited  us  to  reject  a 
certain  geometrical  conclusion  on  the  ground  that, 

235 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

were  it  true,  a  part  must  be  greater  than  the  whole, 
he  discovered  that  the  adoption  of  its  only  possible 
alternative  involved  the  assertion  that  parallel  lines 
meet. 

What,  then,  are  we  to  say  of  a  logical  situation 
such  as  this  ?  The  reader  who  is  unaccustomed  to 
the  discipline  of  systematic  thought  will  possibly 
suppose  it  to  be  so  paradoxical  and  peculiar  that 
it  must  have  been  wrongly  stated,  and  that  really 
there  is  some  simple  escape  from  it.  It  is,  how- 
ever, only  one  of  a  system  ot  similar  situations  in 
one  or  other  of  which  thought  ultimately  finds 
itself,  let  it  only  travel  far  enough  towards  any 
point  of  the  compass.  It  may  possibly  surprise 
many  readers  to  learn  that  there  is  no  speculative 
conclusion  in  the  whole  region  of  speculation  with 
regard  to  which  all  philosophers  are  more  unani- 
mous than  this,  that  all  our  conceptions  of  every- 
thing end  in  some  contradiction;  but  of  all  such 
conclusions  it  is  the  one  which  has,  in  proportion 
to  its  importance,  received  least  serious  attention, 
or  which  has,  when  emphasized,  been  emphasized 
to  such  barren  purpose. 

In  order  to  show  clearly  what  the  scope  of  this 
conclusion  is,  I  shall  summarize  its  details,  as 
elaborately  set  forth  by  Spencer,  who  borrows,  in 
dealing  with  some  of  them,  the  language  of  Dean 
Mansel  —  one  of  the  keenest  philosophic  thinkers 
that  the  Church  of  England  has  produced. 

Man,  says  Spencer,  is,  by  the  very  constitution 
of  his  mind,  driven  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of 

236 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

the  things  about  him — first  the  proximate  causes, 
then  those  more  remote,  till  at  last  he  comes  to 
the  question  of  what  caused  the  universe.  To  this 
question,  says  Spencer,  there  are  but  three  answers 
conceivable.  One  is  that  it  is  self -existent ;  another 
is  that  it  is  self-created;  the  third  is  that  it  was 
created  by  some  external  agency.  But  though 
each  of  these  answers  has  a  sort  of  verbal  meaning, 
none  of  them  has  a  meaning  which  the  mind  can 
really  think.  If  we  say  that  it  is  self-existent, 
we  mean  that  it  existed  always;  and  if  we  try 
to  follow  this  meaning  out,  the  mind  is  drowned  in 
the  depths  of  a  past  eternity.  If  we  say  that  it  is 
self -created  we  are  in  a  worse  case  still;  for  we 
must  mean  that  before  it  created  itself  it  did  not 
exist  at  all,  and  that  thus  an  absolute  nothing 
became  the  first  cause  of  all  things;  while  if  we 
say  that  it  was  created  by  the  agency  of  an  exter- 
nal God,  our  difficulties  are  just  as  great,  and  con- 
siderably more  elaborate.  In  the  first  place,  such 
a  God,  if  he  is  the  cause  of  all  things,  must  be 
infinite,  for  otherwise  something  will  limit  him  not 
caused  by  himself.  In  the  second  place,  he  must 
be  absolute,  or  constrained  by  no  necessity  to 
do  or  become  anything,  or  to  refrain  from  doing 
or  becoming  it ;  for  otherwise  the  determining 
necessity  would  be  the  real  First  Cause,  not  he. 
Such  conclusions,  says  Spencer,  are  common  to 
all  thinkers;  and  having  brought  us  to  this  point, 
he  passes  us  on  to  Dean  Mansel,  who  shows  us 
that,  while  causality,  infinitude,  and  absoluteness 

237 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

are  essential  to  our  conception  of  Deity,  and  a  God 
would  be  no  God  who  did  not  possess  them  all, 
yet  they  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  ascribed 
to  the  same  Being  without  doing  violence  to  the 
first  principles  of  our  reason.  Thus,  an  Absolute 
Being,  as  such,  cannot  reasonably  be  thought  of 
as  a  cause;  for  a  cause  is,  in  its  essence,  related  to 
a  something  which  is  not  itself.  Nor  again,  if  the 
Absolute  is  not  only  absolute,  but  infinite,  is  it 
possible  to  conceive  that,  having  existed  first  by 
itself,  it  should  by  an  act  of  will  have  turned  itself 
into  a  cause  subsequently;  for  the  infinite  can 
never  become  that  which  it  was  not  always.  Fur- 
ther, an  act  of  will  implies  purpose  and  conscious- 
ness; but  how  can  the  Absolute  and  the  Infinite 
be  thought  of  as  possessing  either  ?  Not  only  can 
it  purpose  nothing,  for  all  things  are  fulfilled  in  it 
already ;  but  it  cannot  even  be  conscious,  for  to  be 
so  implies  subject  and  object,  and  the  Absolute 
and  the  Infinite  is  incapable  of  such  division.  Thus, 
says  Dean  Mansel,  to  come  down  to  particulars, 
how  can  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute  be  conceived 
of  as  causing  the  universe?  Infinitely  perfect  as 
he  must  have  been  before  the  universe  was,  how 
can  the  universe  have  ever  become  a  need  for 
him?  To  answer  these  questions  in  terms  of 
reason  is  impossible.  If  we  analyze  our  concep- 
tion of  God,  He  resolves  himself  into  a  chaos  of 
contradictions;  yet  unless  these  contradictions  are 
united  in  Him,  He  is  not  a  God  at  all. 

Such,  then,  says  Spencer,  is  the  pass  to  which 
238 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

theology  brings  us;  and  he  invites  us  to  see  how 
the  case  stands  with  science. 

Without  troubling  our  heads  about  the  First 
Cause  of  the  universe,  let  us  consider,  he  says,  the 
facts  of  the  universe  with  which  science  directly 
deals.  They  are  space,  time,  matter,  the  motion 
of  matter,  and  our  own  conscious  selves  in  which 
all  these  things  appear.  We  shall  find  that  every 
one  of  them,  if  we  only  think  out  our  conception 
of  it,  is  just  as  self -contradictory  as  the  theologian's 
conception  of  God. 

To  begin  with  space  and  time — we  know  well 
enough  what  we  mean  by  them,  for  practical  pur- 
poses, and  within  very  narrow  limits;  but  let  us 
carry  our  conception  of  them  further,  either  inward 
or  outward,  and  it  dies  in  the  infinite  on  the  one 
hand,  and  it  dies  in  the  infinitesimal  on  the  other. 
Further,  he  asks,  what  are  they?  Do  they  exist 
apart  from  ourselves,  or  are  they  mere  forms  of 
thought?  If  they  are  not  mere  forms  of  thought, 
they  must  be  either  things  or  nothings.  We 
cannot  say  that  they  are  nothings;  yet,  if  things, 
they  have  no  attributes.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  are  forms  of  thought  only,  they  are,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  forms  which  cannot  complete  them- 
selves. 

Let  us  turn  to  matter,  and  we  encounter  a 
similar  difficulty.  Matter,  in  masses,  is  made  up  of 
countless  particles;  but  the  masses  occupy  space, 
so  the  units  must  do  so  likewise;  for  no  aggrega- 
tion of  ciphers  will  ever  make  up  a  number.  But 

239 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

the  separate  particles,  however  small  we  imagine 
them,  are,  in  theory,  divisible  forever  into  parts 
that  are  smaller  still.  Thus  the  ultimate  units 
must  either  always  elude  us,  or  be  points  which 
are  indivisible  because  they  have  no  dimension. 
In  the  one  case  mass  is  unthinkable  when  we  try 
to  take  it  to  pieces :  in  the  other  case  it  is  unthink- 
able when  we  try  to  put  the  pieces  together.  Thus, 
even  our  conceptions  of  a  brick,  a  stone,  a  potato 
lie  in  our  minds  like  so  many  grains  of  gunpowder, 
which  explode  when  touched  by  analysis,  and 
perish  in  their  own  smoke. 

From  matter  let  us  turn  to  motion.  Here  again, 
in  this  universal  phenomenon,  the  reality  of  which 
no  one  doubts,  and  without  which  we  could  not 
live,  we  have  something  which  for  strict  reason  is 
altogether  impossible.  A  body  must  always  be  in 
some  particular  place,  nor  can  it  ever  be  in  two 
places  at  once.  A  body,  therefore,  moving  from 
one  place  to  another  must  occupy  in  its  passage 
an  infinite  series  of  places.  Where  is  it  when  it  is 
passing  from  one  place  to  another?  However 
close  to  its  predecessor  each  new  place  may  be, 
there  must  between  the  outlines  of  the  two  be 
some  intervening  space,  for  otherwise  the  body 
would  not  get  on  at  all.  How  can  thought  repre- 
sent to  itself  the  body  as  traversing  this?  It 
cannot — the  thing  is  impossible:  and  thought  is 
just  as  incompetent  to  represent  to  itself  the  initial 
transition  from  complete  rest  to  movement,  and 
the  counter-transition  from  movement  to  complete 

240 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

rest,  as  it  is  to  represent  to  itself  the  events  which 
happen  in  the  interval.  In  short,  says  Spencer, 
"all  efforts  to  understand  the  essential  nature  of 
motion  do  but  bring  us  to  alternative  impossibilities 
of  thought." 

Finally,  let  us  turn  to  the  fact  of  our  own  con- 
sciousness, which  in  all  our  reasoning  about  every- 
thing else  is  presupposed.  What  is  this  con- 
sciousness? For  us  it  is  our  first  certainty;  and 
yet  for  thought,  it  is  nothing  but  a  travelling  and 
unseizable  moment  —  a  dimensionless  point  at 
which  that  which  has  been  ends  and  that  which 
will  be  has  not  yet  begun.  In  it  we  live  and  think, 
yet  it  vanishes  when  thought  approaches  it.  We 
have  here,  says  Spencer,  "the  same  kind  of  per- 
plexity as  that  presented  by  the  relations  of  move- 
ment and  rest,"  and  from  this  perplexity  we  are 
led  on  to  another.  When  we  speak  of  ourselves 
as  conscious — indeed,  when  we  speak  about  any- 
thing —  we  necessarily  believe  and  imply  that  a 
something  called  self  exists.  But  how  can  this 
irresistible  belief  be  justified  in  terms  of  reason? 
"If,"  says  Spencer,  "the  perceived  object  is  self, 
what  is  the  subject  that  perceives?  Or  if  it  is 
the  true  self  which  thinks,  what  can  the  other  self 
be  that  is  thought  of?"  The  truth  is,  he  proceeds, 
that  "  a  cognition  of  self  implies  a  state  in  which 
knowing  and  known  are  one,"  and  this,  while  prac- 
tically the  assertion,  is  logically  "the  annihila- 
tion of  both."  Thus,  he  says,  "the  personalty  of 
which  each  is  conscious,  and  of  which  the  existence 

241 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

is  to  each  a  fact  beyond  all  others  the  most  cer- 
tain," is  a  thing  the  conception  of  which  reason 
is  unable  to  tolerate,  unless  it  is  prepared  to  dis- 
member itself  on  the  rack  of  its  own  self-contra- 
dictions. 

Such,  briefly  summarized,  is  the  case  as  set  forth 
by  Spencer,  his  own  reasonings  with  regard  to  the 
scientific  universe  being  paralleled  by  those  of 
the  theologian,  with  regard  to  the  theologian's 
God. 

Let  us  try  to  conceive  an  infinite  and  absolute 
God,  and  the  more  systematic  our  attempt  the 
more  thoroughly  does  it  defeat  itself.  Such  a 
Being,  says  Dean  Mansel,  "cannot  be  conceived 
as  conscious,  neither  can  He  be  conceived  as 
unconscious.  He  can  be  conceived  neither  as 
simple  or  complex;  neither  by  difference,  nor  by 
absence  of  difference  .  .  .  neither  as  personal  nor 
as  impersonal.  He  cannot  be  identified  with  the 
universe,  neither  can  He  be  distinguished  from  it." 

Let  us  try  to  conceive  the  universe,  and  the 
various  elements  comprised  in  it,  as  modern  science 
studies  them;  "and,"  says  Spencer,  "the  same 
conclusion  is  arrived  at,  from  whatever  point  we 
set  out."  If  respecting  the  "origin  of  things"  in 
general,  and  "the  nature  of  things"  in  particular, 
"  we  make  some  assumptions,  we  find  that,  through 
an  inexorable  logic,  it  inevitably  commits  us  to 
ultimate  impossibilities  of  thought:  and  this  holds 
good  of  every  assumption  that  can  be  imagined." 

Mansel  and  Spencer  are  only  stating  here  a 
242 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

> 

general  conclusion  to  which  accurate  thought  leads 
everybody:  but,  as  I  said  before,  there  is  no  im- 
portant conclusion  whose  meaning  has  been  so 
completely  neglected,  or  so  completely  misinter- 
preted as  this.  Let  us  see  how  it  is  interpreted  by 
the  Dean  and  Spencer  respectively. 

The  Dean's  interpretation  of  the  fact  that  the 
character  of  the  theistic  God  cannot  be  conceived 
by  reason,  unless  reason  contradicts  itself,  is  this — 
that  it  merely  exemplifies  the  transcendence  of  the 
divine  Nature,  to  which  we  may  freely  impute 
whatever  our  faith  demands  of  us,  leaving  the 
contradictions  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Thus, 
he  says,  in  spite  of  all  intellectual  difficulties,  "it 
is  our  duty  to  think  of  God  as  personal;  and  it  is 
our  duty  to  believe  that  He  is  infinite." 

The  interpretation  of  Spencer  is  in  direct  op- 
position to  this.  The  fact,  he  says,  of  our  knowing 
from  experience  that  the  First  Cause  is  unthink- 
able, instead  of  leaving  us  free  to  impute  to  it 
any  qualities  we  please,  sternly  forbids  us  to  im- 
pute to  it  any  qualities  at  all.  To  suppose,  as  the 
Dean  does,  that  morality  can  oblige  us  to  assert 
what  our  intellect  obliges  us  to  deny,  is,  according 
to  Spencer,  monstrous;  and  he  ends  his  confession 
of  faith  with  the  following  emphatic  words:  "Let 
those  who  can  believe  that  there  is  eternal  war  set 
between  our  intellectual  faculties  and  our  moral 
obligations.  I,  for  one,  admit  no  such  radical  vice 
in  the  constitution  of  things."  It  is  Spencer's 
position,  rather  than  the  Dean's,  that  here  specially 

243 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

concerns  us;  and  the  words  just  quoted  will  pres- 
ently throw  much  light  on  it. 

Let  us  consider  Spencer's  reasoning  with  regard 
to  this  question  carefully.  It  is  not  his  reasoning 
only.  It  is  really  the  reasoning  of  all  non-theistic 
agnosticism  reduced  by  a  powerful  thinker  to  a 
seemingly  coherent  form.  We  will  follow  it  step 
by  step,  reducing  it  still  further,  so  that  nothing 
may  claim  our  attention  but  its  few  really  vital 
parts. 

It  starts  with  the  admission  that  there  must  be 
a  universal  Cause — or  perhaps  it  would  be  better 
to  say  a  universal  Principle — of  things,  and  that 
this  Cause  or  Principle  must  be  at  once  infinite 
and  absolute.  So  far  science  and  theistic  religion 
agree;  but  at  this  point  theistic  religion  insists  on 
preceding  further,  and  attributing  to  the  universal 
Principle  not  only  absoluteness  and  infinity,  but 
certain  other  qualities  also,  which  derive  their 
meaning  from  the  analogies  of  human  nature. 
These  qualities  are  three  in  number  —  intelligent 
purpose,  which  is  ascribed  to  the  universal  Prin- 
ciple as  a  causal  Being;  perfect  goodness,  which 
is  ascribed  to  it  as  a  moral  Being;  and  personal 
consciousness,  which  is  ascribed  to  it  in  both 
capacities.  Here  the  dispute  between  science  and 
theistic  religion  begins.  Can  an  ascription  of  such 
qualities  to  the  universal  Principle  be  justified? 
Theistic  religion  naturally  says  Yes.  Agnostic  sci- 
ence, as  represented  by  Spencer,  says  No. 

Now  why  does  he  say  No  ?  He  says  No  because, 
244 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

on  the  admission  of  theological  thinkers  themselves, 
these  qualities  as  attributed  to  the  universal  Being 
are  unthinkable.  The  theistic  God  is  an  aggregate 
of  qualities  which  the  imagination  has  juxtaposed, 
but  between  which,  for  the  intellect,  there  can  be 
no  real  connection;  and  a  large  part  of  scientific 
and  philosophical  thought  is  simply  a  dissolution  of 
aggregates  of  this  illegitimate  kind. 

The  general  doctrine,  then,  that  emerges  from 
the  Spencerian  critique  is  this — that  nothing  can, 
in  reason,  be  held  to  have  any  existence,  if  the 
various  qualities  essential  to  the  conception  which 
we  form  of  it,  are  found  by  reason  to  contradict 
each  other,  when  attributed  to  the  same  thing. 
But  how,  if  such  be  the  case,  does  anything  exist 
at  all?  For  existence  in  its  totality  is,  according 
to  Spencer  himself,  just  as  unthinkable  for  science 
as  it  is  for  the  narrowest  theology.  To  this  he 
answers  that  the  objective  existence  of  something 
is  a  necessary  postulate  of  thought,  and  thus  far  we 
may  agree  with  him ;  but  the  very  mind,  he  says, 
which  affirms  that  this  objective  something  exists, 
denies  us  the  right  of  making  any  further  assertions 
with  regard  to  it.  All  that  we  can  know  consists 
of  modes  of  this  unknowable  something.  Matter 
is  a  mode  of  it ;  motion  is  a  mode  of  it ;  we  ourselves 
are  modes  of  it;  but  as  to  what  it  is  in  itself,  of  that 
we  can  know  nothing. 

Now  let  us,  for  the  moment,  grant  that  all  this 
is  true.  It  does  but  bring  us  to  the  threshold  of  the 
critical  question.  Matter,  motion,  and  ourselves, 

17  245 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

in  some  sense  or  other  exist,  and  they  exist  not 
only  in  the  sense  that  we  are  able  to  assert  their 
existence,  but  in  the  sense  that  we  are  able  to  assert 
about  it  a  number  of  very  definite  things.  They 
form,  indeed,  the  principal  subjects  of  the  whole  of 
Spencer's  works.  Even  if  we  say,  then,  that  these 
things  are  merely  modes  of  an  unknowable  some- 
thing else,  yet  for  us,  in  a  practical  sense,  they  are 
intimately  known  realities.  It  is  only  because 
they  exist  for  us,  that  we  infer  something  else 
which  transcends  them.  But  each  of  these  things, 
according  to  Spencer,  not  only  in  its  underlying 
reality,  but  as  we  ourselves  know  and  experience 
it,  is  just  as  unthinkable  as  the  underlying  reality 
itself.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  matter.  We  have 
all  of  us  a  working  conception  of  what  material 
things  are,  which  experience  shows  us  to  be,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  correct.  If  we  had  not,  there  could 
be  no  science.  And  yet  we  need  only,  under 
Spencer's  guidance,  meditate  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  and  a  half -penny  becomes  as  unthinkable 
as  the  theologian's  God.  The  case  is  the  same 
with  motion.  Every  time  the  train  took  Mr. 
Spencer  from  Brighton  to  London  and  back  again, 
it  was  accomplishing  a  feat  which,  as  he  himself 
has  shown  us,  thought  can  only  present  to  us  in 
propositions  which  ultimately  contradict  them- 
selves; while,  when  we  came  to  our  own  person- 
alities, the  mystery  is  deeper  still.  "A  true 
cognition,"  he  says,  of  our  own  personal  existence, 
"implies  a  state  in  which  the  knowing  and  the 

246 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

known  are  one — in  which  subject  and  object  are 
identified,  and  this  Mr.  Mansel  rightly  holds  to  be 
the  annihilation  of  both."  And  thus,  he  says,  in 
words  which  we  have  already  quoted,  "  the  person- 
ality which  is  to  each  a  fact  beyond  all  others  the 
most  certain,  is  a  thing  which  cannot  truly  be 
known  at  all." 

Here  at  last  we  come  to  the  critical  question 
itself.  What  is  the  legitimate  conclusion  to  be 
drawn  from  all  these  arguments?  It  is  the  very 
opposite  of  that  so  perversely  drawn  by  Spencer. 
It  is  not  that  nothing  can,  in  reason,  be  held  to 
exist,  if  the  qualities  essential  to  our  conception 
of  it  are  found  in  reason  to  contradict  each  other; 
but  that  nothing  exists  from  whose  existence  this 
obstinate  contradiction  is  absent.  It  underlies  our 
conception,  not  only  of  things  as  a  whole,  but  of 
each  single  thing  also — and  not  only  of  these  in 
themselves,  but  of  these  as  apprehended  by  us. 
How,  then,  can  it  be  argued  that  the  universal 
cause  or  principle  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  God, 
in  the  theist's  sense  of  the  word,  because  it  is  as 
difficult  to  think  of  such  a  God's  existence  as  to 
think  of  that  of  a  half -penny  or  of  a  London-and- 
Brighton  train?  If  we  could  understand  these 
modes  of  the  universal  Principle  any  better  than 
we  can  understand  the  Principle  itself,  there  might 
then  be  something  in  Spencer's  singular  doctrine; 
but  he  expressly  tells  us  that  we  cannot.  The 
modes,  including  our  own  personalities,  with  regard 
to  all  of  which  we  are  obliged  to  form  propositions, 

247 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

are  no  less  unthinkable  than  the  Principle  with 
regard  to  which  we  are  to  form  none. 

Since  then,  we  are  obliged  by  our  constitution  as 
human  beings  to  form  conceptions  of,  and  assent  to 
propositions  respecting,  these  modes  or  manifesta- 
tions of  a  Principle  itself  unknown,  though  these 
conceptions    and   propositions    ultimately    resolve 
themselves  into  others,    the   parts   and   terms  of 
which  thought  can  no  longer  unite,  this  is  all  that 
theistic  religion  asks.     No  theologian  or  theist  has 
ever  maintained  that  God,   though   He  revealed 
Himself   twenty   times   over   in   twenty    different 
Bibles,  could  ever  be  known  by  man  as  what  God 
actually  is.     When  Augustine  was  walking  by  the 
sea  meditating  on  the  divine  Nature,  he  noticed  a 
child,  who,  armed  with  a  little  vessel,  was  emptying 
sea-water  into  a  hollow  which  it  had  scooped  out  in 
the  sand.     The  saint  asked  it  what  it  was  trying  to 
do.     "  I  want,"  said  the  child,  "  to  get  the  sea  into 
that  hollow."  "  That,  my  little  man,"  said  the  saint, 
"you  will  be  able  to  do  never."     "I  shall  do  it," 
said  the  child,  "  sooner  than  thou,  Augustine,  wilt  be 
able  to  understand  the  immeasurable  mystery  of 
God."     In  this  story  we  see  what  the  word  God 
means  for  theism.     In  so  far  as  it  comprises  any 
qualities  individually  thinkable,  the  theistic  con- 
ception of  God  is  not,  and  does  not  profess  to  be, 
a  conception  of  the  Absolute  and  Infinite  as  the 
Absolute  and  Infinite  are.     Christ  himself,  though 
proclaimed  as  the  Word  by  which  the  worlds  were 
made,  is  not  represented  even  in  John's  Gospel  as 

248 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

manifesting  to  men  any  knowledge  of  what  the 
cosmic  process  was.  The  theistic  conception  of 
God,  even  according  to  Christian  thinkers,  is  merely 
a  conception  of  certain  associated  modes  or  mani- 
festations of  a  Power,  whose  entire  nature  can  never 
be  made  manifest.  It  is  merely  a  conception  pre- 
cisely similar  in  kind  to  the  conceptions  formed  by 
us  of  those  other  modes  of  the  Unknowable,  such  as 
matter,  motion,  and  in  especial  our  own  personali- 
ties, with  which  the  thought  of  Spencer,  and  all 
other  thought  deals,  and  the  essential  contents  of 
which,  according  to  Spencer's  own  analysis,  resolve 
themselves  into  the  same  intellectual  contradictions 
as  those  which  confront  us  when,  taking  the  quali- 
ties of  God,  we  invite  the  intellect  to  contemplate 
them  as  coexistent  in  the  same  Being.  It  is  im- 
possible for  it  to  represent  to  itself  an  absolute  God 
as  purposing.  It  is  equally  impossible  for  it — so 
far  as  ultimate  implications  are  concerned — to  rep- 
resent to  itself  a  train  moving  or  a  Bath  bun  sun- 
ning itself  in  a  shop  window.  If,  therefore,  we  are 
justified  by  the  laws  of  the  human  intellect  in  as- 
serting that  the  latter  are  real  in  a  true  practical 
sense — in  the  only  sense  in  which  anything  can 
possibly  be  real  for  ourselves — there  can  be  no  & 
priori  reason  of  any  kind  which  can  hinder  us  from 
claiming  a  similar  reality  for  the  former. 

Accordingly,  since,  as  we  have  seen  already,  we 
are  forced  by  the  very  principles  of  deterministic 
science  itself  to  infer  that  the  universal  Cause  or 
Essence  of  things  must  from  all  time  have  oper- 

249 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

ated  with  deliberate  purpose,  or  exhibited  purpose 
to  ourselves  as  the  knowable  mode  of  its  opera- 
tions, all  theoretical  objections  by  which  an  opposite 
train  of  reasoning  might  nullify  this  conclusion  are 
not,  indeed,  theoretically  annihilated,  but  are  robbed 
of  all  practical  force;  for  we  have  to  disregard 
them  in  order  to  believe  in  anything. 

And  now  we  may  pass  on  to  the  point  which 
here  specially  concerns  us — namely,  the  difficulty 
of  believing  that  an  absolute  and  purposive  Power 
is  good,  when  the  same  reasoning  that  shows  that 
such  a  Power  must  exist  exhibits  it  also  as  the 
originator  and  systematic  permitter  of  evil.  We 
come  back  to  the  difficulty;  and  by  this  time  we 
have  an  answer  to  it.  The  answer  is  that  the  in- 
tellect is  incompetent  to  solve  the  contradiction, 
but  is  nevertheless  competent,  with  its  eyes  open, 
to  disregard  it.  All  solutions  of  it  are  hopeless. 
They  are  shams,  subterfuges,  the  nostrums  of 
theological  quacks;  but  the  intellect,  in  disregard- 
ing it,  though  it  has  no  solution  to  offer,  is  merely 
doing  what  it  must  do,  and  what  it  habitually  does, 
as  the  necessary  condition  of  assenting  to  the  reali- 
ty of  anything  at  all. 

And  now  let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  certain 
words  of  Spencer's,  to  which  attention  was  called 
just  now,  with  a  view  to  future  comment  on  them ; 
and  we  shall  see  that  even  he,  while  repudiating 
the  conclusion  just  reached  by  us,  was  himself,  at 
that  very  time,  thinking  and  feeling  in  accordance 
with  it.  Let  Dean  Mansel,  he  said,  believe  in  an 

250 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

absolute,  a  personal,  and  an  all-good  God,  if  he 
pleases.  Let  him  hold  himself  bound  to  believe 
what  his  intellect  shows  him  to  be  unthinkable.  "  I 
for  one,"  said  Spencer,  "admit  no  such  vice  in  the 
constitution  of  things. ' '  What  is  this  but  an  admis- 
sion of  the  very  fact  that  he  has  been  just  denying  ? 
We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  say  that  the  uni- 
versal Principle  is  good;  and  yet  "he  for  one"  will 
not  "  admit  the  idea  "  that  there  can  be  any  "  vice  " 
in  it.  This  is  obviously  an  assertion  that  the  Un- 
knowable is  known  not  to  be  vicious.  Nor  does 
this  statement  stand  alone.  Spencer  says,  in  an- 
other passage  to  which  reference  has  been  made 
already,  "It  is  not  for  nothing  that  a  man  has  in 
him  sympathies  with  some  principles  and  repug- 
nance to  others.  .  .  .  When  the  Unknown  Cause 
produces  in  a  man  a  certain  belief,  he  is  thereby 
authorized  to  profess  and  act  on  this  belief."  What 
is  this  but  to  say  that  the  Unknowable  is  known  to 
have  purpose  ?  Yet  again,  he  says  in  a  third  place, 
that  when  we  declare  the  Unknowable  not  to  pos- 
sess personality,  we  are  not  declaring  that  it  is 
lower  than  a  person,  but  rather  that  it  must  be 
"something  higher";  and  though  anything  higher 
than  personality  is,  he  adds,  "  totally  inconceivable ; 
this  is  not  a  reason  for  questioning  its  existence, 
but  rather  the  reverse."  What  is  this  but  an  asser- 
tion of  knowledge  on  our  part  that  in  the  character 
of  the  Unknowable,  however  it  transcends  person- 
ality, all  the  qualities  of  personality  are  subsumed ; 
while  our  utter  inability  to  think  clearly  this  quasi- 

251 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

theological  proposition  is  a  reason  for  believing 
rather  than  a  reason  for  doubting  it  ? 

Here  we  have  the  very  fact  for  which  we  are 
ourselves  contending,  admitted  unconsciously,  and 
with  a  kind  of  parenthetical  candor,  by  the  very 
thinker  who  has  been  foremost  in  elaborating  a 
systematic  denial  of  it.  We  have,  however,  our- 
selves done  much  better  than  he.  The  admissions 
which,  as  made  by  him,  have  no  logical  justifica- 
tion, we  have  affiliated  to  his  own  principles,  and 
invested  with  a  coherent  form.  We  have  shown, 
with  regard  to  the  so-called  Unknowable  Cause, 
that  personality  and  purpose  must,  according  to 
the  principles  of  deterministic  science,  be  as  truly 
modes  of  its  existence  as  any  of  the  phenomena 
purposed  by  it,  though  the  infinity  of  purposes, 
which  must  all  have  been  its  purposes  simultane- 
ously, will  have  been  enough  to  show  that  its  per- 
sonality must  be  more  than  ours.  By  means  of 
two  orders  of  evidence,  both  of  which  escape 
Spencer  altogether — the  evidence  of  the  religious 
passion  and  the  evidence  of  the  social  fertility  of 
an  assent  to  the  fundamentals  of  theism — we  have 
shown  that  there  are  definite  grounds  for  holding 
that  the  Universal  Principle  has  not  only  no  "radi- 
cal vice"  in  it,  but  is  also  supremely  good;  and, 
finally,  we  have  shown,  with  the  aid  of  Spencer  him- 
self, that  the  evidence  to  the  contrary,  arising  from 
the  existence  of  evil,  though  at  first  sight  it  seems 
overwhelming,  may  be  reasonably  set  aside. 

So  far,  therefore,  as  the  character  of  the  theistic 
252 


THE    CUTTING    OF    KNOTS 

God  is  concerned,  we  have,  without  travelling 
beyond  the  limits  of  strict  science,  or  the  principles 
expressly  laid  down  by  two  of  its  most  famous 
exponents,  nullified  one  by  one  the  purely  logical 
difficulties  which  such  science  seems  to  place  in 
the  way  of  theistic  belief. 

But  though  we  may  thus  be  said  to  have  re- 
opened an  intellectual  road  to  God,  if  only  man  be 
a  being  morally  qualified  to  take  it,  the  character 
of  man  still  remains  to  be  dealt  with.  Seeing  how 
inseparable,  so  far  as  science  can  inform  us  his  life 
and  mind  are  from  his  physical  organism,  and  how 
manifestly  inseparable  his  organism  is  from  the 
universe,  can  we  reasonably  justify  ourselves  in 
assenting  to  the  required  belief  that  man  has  any 
independent  being  at  all,  and  is  not  a  mere  eddy 
or  vortex  in  the  thought  of  the  divine  Mind  ?  This 
question  we  will  consider  in  the  following  chapter. 


IV 

DIFFICULTIES    INHERENT    IN   THE    CONCEPTION 

OF    A   FREE    HUMAN    PERSONALITY,  AND 

THEIR    PRACTICAL    SOLUTION 

THE  idea  that  the  individual  mind  is  merely  a  part 
of  the  universal  mind,  human  personality  having 
thus  no  real  existence,  is  not  only  an  idea  which 
science  appears  to  thrust  on  us;  it  is  also  an  idea 
which  may,  as  the  case  of  Buddhism  shows  us,  be 
developed,  with  apparent  consistency,  into  a  prac- 
tical moral  system.  Thus  developed,  it  leads  to  the 
general  doctrine  that  the  false  sense  of  individuality 
is  the  root  of  all  human  evil,  and  that  the  way  to 
escape  from  evil  is  to  rid  ourselves  of  this  perverse 
illusion — firstly,  by  mortification  and  extinction  of 
all  selfish  desire;  secondly,  by  the  fusion,  through 
universal  love  and  sympathy,  of  the  will  of  the 
individual  with  the  will  of  all  other  men.  When 
this  has  been  perfectly  accomplished,  the  person- 
ality of  the  individual  has  disappeared,  and  physi- 
cal death  ushers  him  into  the  blessedness  of  ever- 
lasting rest. 

Now  here  we  may  observe  in  passing,  that,  as 
applied  to  practical  life,  Buddhism  is  essentially 

254 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

a  religion  of  pure  negation.  All  advances  in  civil- 
ization, art,  society,  are  necessarily  condemned  by 
it  as  so  many  fresh  fetters,  binding  us  to  an  exist- 
ence from  which  it  should  be  our  sole  anxiety  to 
escape.  It  has  never  been  acted  on  generally  in 
its  purest  and  strictest  form ;  and  such  civilizations 
as  have  been  associated  with  it,  have  flourished 
in  defiance  of  its  theories.  But  the  fact  which 
concerns  us  now  is  not  that  in  its  purest  form  it  has 
never  been  able  to  influence  more  than  an  elect 
minority;  but  that  it  is  not,  even  as  accepted  by 
this  minority,  the  coherent  system  which  it  pretends 
to  be.  As  a  doctrine  that  the  individual  mind  is 
a  part  of  the  mind  universal,  it  bears  a  superficial 
resemblance  to  the  quasi-pantheism  of  modern  ag- 
nostic science;  but  the  resemblance  is  superficial 
only.  While  resembling  such  science  in  denying 
that  the  mind  of  man  can  be  immortal,  it  affirms  it 
to  be  immortal  in  the  sense  that  it  indefinitely  sur- 
vives the  body,  its  connection  with  which  is  left  an 
unnoticed  mystery;  and,  further,  it  assumes  that 
so  long  as  the  phantom  of  personality  lasts,  this 
fragment  of  the  mind  universal  has  a  private  will 
of  its  own,  by  which  in  each  fresh  incarnation  it 
determines  the  use  of  its  faculties,  and  hastens  or 
delays  the  life  that  shall  make  it  ripe  for  Nirvana. 
Apart  from  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  and  the 
existence  of  an  individual  will,  which  may  or  may 
not  be  used  so  as  to  bring  about  its  own  extinction, 
Buddhism  in  its  pure  form  would  have  neither 
meaning  or  efficacy.  It  would  merely  be  a  doctrine 

255 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

that  death  is  a  good  thing,  because  it  puts  an  end 
to  a  life  which  has  more  sorrows  than  joys  in  it, 
and  which  each  of  us  is  obliged  to  live  as  his  own 
nature  makes  him. 

Thus  even  that  great  religion  which  has  hastily 
been  regarded  by  many  people  as  showing  that  a 
religion  may  develop  itself  from  the  data  of  agnostic 
science,  has  as  its  basis  two,  at  all  events,  of  the 
specific  doctrines  of  theism — the  doctrine  that  the 
mind  does  not  die  with  the  body,  and  the  doctrine 
which  now  specially  concerns  us,  that  the  will  of 
this  mind  is  free. 

For  Buddhism,  which  has  no  science,  physiologi- 
cal, psychological,  or  other,  the  doctrine  of  freedom 
presented  no  intellectual  difficulties.  For  scientific 
thought  and  even  for  introspective  philosophy,  its 
difficulties  are  greater,  or  at  all  events  they  are 
nearer  to  ourselves,  than  those  of  the  doctrine  that 
a  God  who  causes  evil  is  good. 

When  science  exhibits  to  us  the  manner  in  which 
the  human  being  originates,  its  cellular  up-building 
in  the  womb,  its  emergence  as  an  unconscious  baby, 
the  dawn  of  personal  consciousness  as  its  brain 
gradually  matures,  the  sprouting  of  character  before 
it  knows  what  character  is — of  the  sweet  or  the  sav- 
age temper,  of  the  healthy  or  depraved  sexuality, 
of  the  orderly  or  criminal  instincts,  of  the  powerful 
or  helpless  intellect — all  astir  already,  and  doomed 
to  respond  hereafter  to  the  stimuli  of  external  cir- 
cumstances; when  we  follow  the  history  of  such  a 
being  farther,  and  realize  that  its  mental  and  moral 

256 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

life,  so  far  as  observation  can  inform  us,  remains 
as  inseparable  from  the  working,  conscious  or  sub- 
conscious, of  its  organism,  as  the  steam-power  of 
an  engine  is  from  the  particles  of  its  expanding 
steam,  while  the  organism  is  as  inseparable  from 
its  environment  as  a  ship  is  from  the  waves  it  floats 
on;  that  an  accident  may  reduce  an  honest  man 
to  a  kleptomaniac,  or  may  even  shake  the  same 
self  into  several,  so  that  several  different  person- 
alities may  alternate  within  the  same  skull ;  when 
we  realize  that  in  the  life-process  from  a  man's  birth 
to  his  death,  everything  exists  in  relation,  noth- 
ing exists  absolutely;  when  we  realize  all  this,  we 
may  well  be  tempted  to  think  that  the  conception 
of  some  absolute  will-power,  coming  from  we  know 
not  whence,  introducing  itself  we  know  not  when, 
and  interfering  we  know  not  how,  with  this  vital 
ferment  whose  processes  leave  no  room  for  it,  and 
in  each  of  their  minutest  details  are  explicable 
without  its  aid,  is  nothing  more  than  a  dream  sur- 
viving from  man's  earliest  days,  when  the  pouring 
of  every  brook  seemed  the  work  of  some  separate 
spirit. 

For  science,  in  short,  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
struct any  kind  of  theory  by  means  of  which  human 
life,  considered  as  a  part  of  the  universe,  can  be 
credited  with  any  element  of  freedom  —  a  voluntas 
avolsa  fatis  —  without  a  repudiation  of  the  prin- 
ciples on  which  all  science  is  founded;  and  the  im- 
possibility of  the  feat  has  never  been  more  clearly 
illustrated  than  it  has  been  by  the  recent  at- 

257 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF   RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

tempts  of  a  certain  school  of  scientists  to  accom- 
plish it. 

Of  this  school  the  best  known  representative  is 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  who,  full  of  a  righteous  con- 
tempt for  those  who  do  not  agree  with  him,  has 
set  himself  to  reconcile  the  doctrine  that  "all 
existence  is  one,"  that  the  organic  and  the  inor- 
ganic, the  mental  and  the  physical  are  continuous, 
and  that  "man  is  a  part  of  nature,"  with  the  doc- 
trine that  each  individual  is  master  of  his  own 
movements.  It  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 
consider  briefly  how  he  argues. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  one  of  those  who  believe  in 
the  reality  of  telepathy,  and  other  so  -  called 
spiritualistic  phenomena;  and  these  he  regards 
as  offering  positive  proof  that  the  human  intelli- 
gence can  be  operative  apart  and  at  a  distance 
from  the  brain.  Since,  then,  in  this  case  intelli- 
gence and  the  brain  must  be  separable,  and  since 
yet  at  the  same  time  all  existence  is  one,  and  brain 
and  intelligence  must  be  parts  of  the  same  universe, 
Sir  Oliver's  problem  is  how  to  conceive  of  intelli- 
gence, so  that  it  and  the  brain  may  possess  some 
common  denominator. 

If  we  take  his  solution  of  it  as  actually  formu- 
lated by  himself,  it  is  difficult  to  attach  to  it  any 
meaning  at  all,  for  it  takes  the  form  of  two  con- 
tradictory theories,  both  of  which  he  enunciates 
with  equal  emphasis.  One  is  the  theory  of  "spir- 
itual existence  before  all  worlds."  The  other  the 
theory  of  "an  evolutionary  distinction  between 

258 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

matter  and  mind."  According  to  the  first,  an  in- 
definite number  of  intelligences  must  have  exist- 
ed, as  such,  before  material  evolution  began,  and 
condescended  to  enter  our  brains  as  soon  as  our 
brains  were  ready  for  them.  According  to  the 
second,  the  process  of  material  evolution  came 
first,  and  intelligence  is  blown  from  the  brain,  like 
a  soap-bubble  from  the  bowl  of  a  tobacco-pipe,  to 
which  it  adheres  normally,  but  is  capable  of  float- 
ing away  from  it.  Sir  Oliver  seems  unaware  that 
these  two  theories  are  in  conflict;  but  it  is  evi- 
dently the  latter  on  which  he  really  relies,  for 
he  has  definitely  asserted  not  only  that  life 
arises  from  matter,  but  also  that  its  artificial 
production  is  within  the  limits  of  scientific  prob- 
ability. 

Both  theories,  however,  have  one  point  of  re- 
semblance, which  does  something  to  explain  their 
author's  vacillation  between  them,  and  leads  us  to 
the  idea  which  is  really  at  the  root  of  his  entire 
speculation.  This  is  the  idea  that  the  basis  of 
all  existence  is,  for  science,  some  species  of  ether; 
and  that  out  of  it  the  material  universe,  our  brains 
included,  has  been  evolved;  but  that  besides  this 
trifling  product  of  which  Sir  Oliver  speaks  with 
scorn,  the  ether,  which  possesses  any  number  of 
"ethereal  possibilities,"  is  capable  of  being  formed 
into  pure  immaterial  intelligences,  which  are  either 
distilled  out  of  matter,  as  it  evolves  itself  into 
material  brains,  or  are  else  absorbed  by  the  brains 
ready-made  from  without. 

259 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Let  us,  then,  take  this  theory,  and  see  how  Sir 
Oliver  uses  it.  He  begins  by  dividing  matter,  as 
we  know  it,  into  two  sections  —  matter  which  is 
moved  by  nothing  but  force  or  energy,  and  matter 
which  is  moved  by  indwelling  immaterial  mind. 
The  former,  he  says,  "is  impelled  only  by  being 
pushed  from  behind,"  like  a  "pushed  animal." 
Naturally  in  this  region  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  freedom:  but  when  we  come  to  an  "organism 
animated  by  mind,"  we  have,  he  says,  "a  totally 
different  case."  Here  the  object  is  moved,  not  by 
a  push  from  behind,  "  but  by  a  perception  (within 
the  object  itself)  of  something  ahead  of  it";  as  we 
see  in  the  case  "of  the  intangible  influence  of 
hunger,"  which  causes  the  organism  to  move  itself 
in  search  of  food.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  at  this  point  is 
apparently  about  to  inform  us  that  here  we  find  our- 
selves landed  in  the  privileged  sphere  of  freedom; 
but  it  suddenly  occurs  to  him  that  a  nail  moving 
towards  a  magnet  is  just  as  much  determined  by 
"  something  ahead  of  it "  as  an  "  organism  animated 
by  mind"  is  when  it  moves  in  the  direction  of  its 
dinner.  He  invites  us,  therefore,  in  our  search 
for  freedom,  to  take  a  step  farther  yet.  We  must 
look  for  it,  he  says,  not  in  the  mere  principle  of 
mind,  which  may  leave  us  in  the  condition  of 
"electro-magnetic  automata."  We  must  look  for 
it  in  mind  when  it  becomes  "conscious  (in  man), 
able  to  look  before  and  after,  learning  from  the 
past  to  strive  strenuously  towards  the  future.  We 
still  obey  the  strongest  motive  doubtless,  but  there 

260 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

is  something  in  ourselves  that  makes  it  a  motive 
and  regulates  its  strength." 

Sir  Oliver  would  have  simplified  his  argument 
had  he  come  to  this  point  at  once.  What  differen- 
tiates man  from  the  electro-magnetic  automata,  is 
not  that  he  can  create  the  motives  to  which  his 
activities  are  due,  but  that  he  can,  without  predeter- 
mining cause,  intensify,  or  forbear  to  intensify,  this 
motive  or  that,  so  that  motives  otherwise  weak 
shall  be  made  by  his  act  invincible.  Now  in  telling 
us  this,  he  is  doing  nothing  to  solve  the  difficulty. 
He  is  merely  restating  it  in  its  old  classical  form — 
the  form  in  which  it  was  stated  before  science 
began.  The  difficulty  is  precisely  this:  How  is  it 
possible  to  conceive  that,  with  no  prior  motive  to 
determine  him,  a  man  shall  choose  to  intensify  this 
motive  rather  than  that  ?  It  is  a  difficulty  which 
can  be  expressed  as  a  mental  difficulty,  or  a  ma- 
terial. In  its  mental  form,  Sir  Oliver  leaves  it 
untouched.  Let  us  see  if  he  has  done  anything 
to  solve  it,  as  stated  in  terms  of  matter. 

The  means  by  which  he  professes  to  have  ac- 
complished this  important  feat  consists,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  of  the  hypothesis  of  an  im- 
material ether,  which  condenses  itself  into  matter 
on  the  one  hand,  as  steam  condenses  itself  into 
water;  and  ultimately,  on  the  other  hand,  forms 
itself  into  minds  or  spirits,  which  "differentiate 
themselves  through  evolution  from  the  matter,"  in 
which  they  have  apparently  been  imprisoned.  If 
the  spirits  were  not  thus  differentiated  —  if  they 

is  261 


RECONSTRUCTION    OP    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

remained  mere  functions  of  brain,  spirits  would 
have  no  freedom.  Their  actions  would  be  as 
necessary  as  those  of  all  matter  are  admitted  to  be. 
They  become  free  in  the  process  of  being  subli- 
mated into  pure  ether.  Empirically,  then,  we 
have  a  dualism  of  two  universes,  which  according 
to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  obey  different  sets  of  laws, 
freedom  being  possible  in  the  one,  and  not  possible 
in  the  other.  Such  is  the  theory,  and  here  we 
come  to  our  point.  Is  the  distinction  thus  drawn 
between  the  two  universes  tenable  ?  And  if  it  is — 
if  the  laws  of  the  two  are  different — how  do  the 
laws  of  ether  and  the  laws  of  matter  differ?  We 
shall  find,  when  we  consider  these  two  questions 
carefully,  that  the  entire  theory  evaporates  like  an 
empty  dream. 

In  the  first  place,  the  distinction  drawn  between 
matter  and  ether  is,  according  to  Sir  Oliver's  own 
principles,  manifestly  no  more  than  verbal.  Sir 
Oliver  informs  the  world  that  matter  is  capable 
of  being  created.  He  means  by  this  startling 
announcement  that  atoms  at  the  present  moment 
are  in  all  probability  being  formed  out  of  groups 
of  etheric  or  electric  corpuscles.  But  to  call  the 
atoms  matter,  and  their  constituent  parts  not- 
matter,  is  to  state  no  new  truth;  it  is  merely  to 
misuse  language. 

That  such  is  the  case  is  shown  with  curious 
clearness  by  a  Cambridge  scientist,  Mr.  Whetham, 
who  is  here  a  disciple  of  Sir  Oliver's.  Mr.  Whet- 
ham  declares  with  much  philosophical  emphasis, 

262 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

that  ether  is  not  material,  but  sub-material;  that 
it  consists  not  of  matter,  but  of  the  "ghosts"  of 
matter;  and  that  as  soon  as  we  enter  this  sub- 
material  region,  we  leave  the  laws  of  material 
mechanics  behind  us,  and  find  ourselves  "  standing 
on  a  totally  different  plane."  Now,  in  a  certain 
superficial  sense,  this  may  no  doubt  be  true.  We 
might  say  a  similar  thing  with  regard  to  water 
and  steam;  for  water  and  steam  in  many  respects 
act  differently.  No  one  pretends,  however,  that 
they  are  not  both  material ;  for  they  both  of  them 
obviously  belong  to  the  same  causal  system.  Is 
it  pretended  that  matter  and  ether  do  not  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  given  by  Mr. 
Whetham  himself,  who  elaborately  discusses  the 
question  of  how  the  sub-material  corpuscles  so 
group  themselves  as  to  form  material  atoms.  He 
describes  a  series  of  purely  material  experiments, 
which  go  to  show  by  analogy  how  this  grouping 
takes  place;  the  assumption  and  the  conclusion 
being  that  the  sub-material  particles  behave  with 
the  same  rigid,  mathematical,  and  calculable  uni- 
formity as  that  which  prevails  in  the  world  of 
ordinary  matter.  What,  then,  is  the  meaning  of 
this  quasi- scientific  distinction  between  the  material 
world  and  the  ethereal,  to  which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
assigns  so  solemn  an  importance?  Except  as  a 
misleading  way  of  stating  the  simple  fact  that  the 
etheric  corpuscles,  when  they  group  themselves  so 
as  to  form  atoms,  acquire  new  qualities  as  atoms 
do  when  they  group  themselves  so  as  to  form 

263 


RECONSTRUCTION    OP    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

molecules,  the  sole  office  of  this  distinction  is  to 
raise  a  little  cloud  of  mysticism,  in  which  the 
difficulty  of  freedom  may  be  not  solved,  but 
hidden.  The  fact  remains  that,  however  different 
in  detail  the  behavior  of  etheric  and  atomic  par- 
ticles may  be,  they  both  belong  to  a  single  and 
continuous  causal  system,  and  there  is  just  as 
little  room  for  freedom  in  one  set  of  phenomena  as 
in  the  other.1 

The  only  way  in  which  Sir  Oliver  could  logically 
save  the  situation  would  be  to  abandon  his  doctrine 
that  "  all  existence  is  one,"  and  that  the  entire  man 

1  For  Mr.  Whetham's  arguments,  see  The  Recent  Development 
of  Physical  Science,  by  W.  C.  D.  Whetham,  F.R.S.,  Fellow  of 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge;  chap,  vii.,  "Atoms  and  ^Ether." 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  views,  as  above  referred  to,  are  to  be  found 
in  a  variety  of  his  public  utterances,  but  more  especially  in  his 
article  on  "Mind  and  Matter,"  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  1905. 
In  a  previous  article  in  the  same  Journal,  on  "Sin,"  he  throws 
a  curious  light  on  his  own  conception  of  ether,  which  he  seems 
to  regard  as  the  substance  of  the  universal  God.  God  is,  ac- 
cording to  him,  so  conditioned  by  the  determinism  of  His  own 
substance,  that  He  is  constantly  thwarted  in  doing  the  good 
He  would  do,  and  is  constantly  "wrath"  with  Himself  on  ac- 
count of  the  evil  He  has  done.  Men,  says  Sir  Oliver,  are  like 
"phagocytes"  in  God's  veins,  whose  business  is  to  destroy  the 
poisons  lurking  in  the  divine  system.  A  word  may  be  added 
with  regard  to  the  phenomena  of  "Spiritualism."  In  these, 
even  if  we  accept  them  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  does,  there  is  noth- 
ing to  indicate  the  existence  of  an  order  of  phenomena  in  any 
way  free  from  the  determinism  of  causes  generally.  On  the 
contrary,  passivity  and  absence  of  will  is  what  they  all  sug- 
gest. They  resemble  the  etheric  images  which,  according  to 
Lucretius,  were  always  being  given  off  by  everything,  and  drift- 
ing everywhere  through  the  air,  causing  vision,  when  they  struck 
the  eyeballs,  and  dreams  when  they  entered  the  sleeping  brain. 

264 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

is  an  integral  "part  of  nature";  boldly  affirming 
that  the  mind-ether  is  unconnected  with  matter 
altogether,  that  it  belongs  to  a  world  in  which 
there  is  no  uniform  causation,  and  that  matter  and 
mind  can  never  be  differentiated  by  evolution,  be- 
cause from  the  beginning  they  have  been  utterly 
different  things.  Only  in  this  case  the  conception 
of  mind-ether  becomes  a  mere  cumbersome  super- 
fluity. He  might  as  well  content  himself  at  once 
with  the  theologian's  mind  or  soul.  If  he  did  this, 
he  might  consistently  postulate  freedom;  but  he 
would  do  so  by  refraining  from  his  attempts  to 
discover  a  scientific  explanation  of  it ;  and  he  should 
abandon  the  vocabulary  of  science  as  completely 
as  he  abandoned  its  principles. 

Desperate  attempts  such  as  this  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  to  find  in  the  scientific  universe  a  thinkable 
place  for  freedom,  do  but  illustrate  afresh,  if  fresh 
illustration  be  needed,  that  to  accomplish  the  feat 
in  a  scientific  sense  is  impossible.  How,  then,  are 
we  to  deal  with  it  ? 

We  can  deal  with  it  in  one  way  only;  and  that 
is  by  means  of  the  argument  which  was  elaborated 
in  our  last  chapter.  We  must  recognize  that  the 
difficulty  involved  in  our  belief  in  freedom  is  merely 
another  example  of  that  insoluble  contradiction 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  underlies  our  conceptions 
of  everything.  Spencer,  in  dealing  with  these  con- 
tradictions, makes  no  mention  of  freedom,  not  him- 
self believing  in  it;  but  of  all  contradictory  con- 
ceptions, it  is  perhaps  the  most  curious.  The 

265 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

difficulty  involved  in  it  is  one  which,  as  commonly 
apprehended,  presents  itself  in  three  forms — the 
theological,  the  psychological,  and  the  physical. 
For  theology,  it  resolves  itself  into  the  question  of 
how  man  can  be  free  to  do  or  not  to  do  any  par- 
ticular thing,  when  his  choice  has  from  all  eternity 
been  forewritten  in  the  will  and  the  knowledge 
of  God.  For  psychology,  it  resolves  itself  into 
the  question  of  how  any  act  can  be  free,  when  no 
volition  is  possible  apart  from  the  determinism 
of  motive;  the  theory  that  freedom  resides  in  the 
intensification  of  this  motive  or  that,  being  merely 
the  difficulty  restated  in  slightly  different  terms. 
For  physical  science,  it  resolves  itself  into  the  ques- 
tion of  how  the  will,  which  is  inseparable  from 
the  action  of  the  physical  organism,  can  interfere 
with  the  process  of  which  it  is  itself  a  product,  any 
more  than  the  wheel  of  a  watch  can  interfere  with 
its  own  rotation. 

It  presents  itself,  however,  in  a  fourth  form  also, 
which  is  far  more  significant  than  these,  though 
not  so  commonly  dwelt  upon.  This  is  a  difficulty 
which  would  exist  unlessened  and  unaltered,  if  all 
the  others  were  altogether  removed.  It  consists 
not  of  the  fact  that  freedom  is  apparently  rendered 
impossible  by  the  various  conditions  to  which  life 
is  found  to  be  subjected;  but  of  the  fact  that  the 
very  principle  whose  possibility  we  desire  to  vindi- 
cate is  a  something  which,  when  analyzed,  eludes 
thought  altogether,  separating  itself  into  two  ideas 
of  which  each  destroys  the  other. 

266 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  very  simple  example. 
A  man,  we  will  say,  is  halting  between  two  courses 
—the  definite  undertaking  of  some  arduous  and 
active  duty,  and  a  self-surrender  to  the  magic  of 
some  illicit  passion.  Strong  motives  bias  him  in 
favor  of  both.  They  are  lying  in  two  scales,  mak- 
ing the  balance  sway,  and  the  man  is  a  Brennus 
who  must  cast  his  sword  into  one  of  them.  By 
putting  the  case  thus,  we  are,  as  I  have  said  be- 
fore, merely  duplicating  the  problem  of  choice  and 
motive;  for  let  him  cast  his  sword  into  the  right 
scale  or  the  left,  the  old  question  still  remains  un- 
answered why  he  did  the  one  thing  instead  of  doing 
the  other. 

To  this  question  only  two  answers  are  possible. 
He  must  have  done  what  he  did,  either  for  some 
cause,  or  for  none.  Now  the  literature  dealing 
with  experiences  such  as  this,  is  enormous;  and  in 
every  case  where  a  moral  choice  has  been  described, 
some  specific  cause  has  been  definitely,  and  even 
ostentatiously,  assigned  to  it.  Let  us  begin,  then, 
by  supposing  that  he  acts  from  some  definite  mo- 
tive. 

If  the  man  whom  we  are  imagining  were  a  Chris- 
tian, and  decided  in  favor  of  duty,  he  would  say 
that  he  was  motived  to  do  so  by  a  memory  of 
some  words  of  Christ's,  or  of  his  own  early  teachers, 
which  suddenly  came  back  to  him.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  we  suppose  him  to  have  decided  in  favor 
of  his  romance,  he  would  explain  the  fact  by 
reference  to  the  image  of  the  beloved  woman, 

267 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

which  appealed  to  his  romantic  instincts  in  a  way 
that  there  was  no  resisting.  Now  let  us  suppose 
that,  the  man  having  made  his  choice,  we  were 
able  to  recall  the  moment,  and  put  him  through 
the  crisis  again,  having  meanwhile  made  some 
alteration  in  his  past  life  or  his  temperament.  Let 
us  suppose  that,  he  having  on  the  first  occasion 
resisted  the  temptation  to  romance  in  consequence 
of  some  thought  of  Christ,  we  have  now  taken 
away  from  him  all  knowledge  of  Christianity.  The 
cause  of  his  resistance  will  be  gone  ;  he  will  now 
resist  no  longer.  Or  let  us  suppose  that,  he  having 
yielded  to  romance  on  the  first  occasion,  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  call  of  a  naturally  amative  tempera- 
ment, we  have  now  made  his  temperament  such 
that  women  have  small  attraction  for  him.  In  this 
case  we  shall  have  removed  the  cause  that  had 
made  him  yield ;  and  the  woman  being  no  tempta- 
tion, he  will  follow  the  call  of  duty. 

If,  however,  we  realize  what  this  system  of 
causation  implies,  we  shall  see  that  the  man,  let 
him  make  what  choice  he  may,  is  nothing  more 
than  the  puppet  of  his  tissues  and  his  previous 
training.  He  could  have  made  one  choice  only, 
and  that  is  the  choice  he  made.  In  other  words, 
it  was  made  not  by,  but  for,  him;  and  possesses, 
so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  no  moral  value  at  all. 

Let  us,  then,  shift  our  ground.  Let  us  abandon 
the  causal  theory  and  adopt  its  only  alternative— 
the  theory  that  when  the  sword  is  cast  into  the  right- 
hand  scale  or  into  the  left,  there  is  nothing  in  the 

268 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

circumstances,  the  education,  or  the  existing  idio- 
syncrasies of  the  man,  which  compels  him  to  cast 
it  into  one  scale,  and  refrain  from  casting  it  into 
the  other.  Let  us  see  what  aspect  his  act  of  choice 
will  wear  in  this  case.  If  the  man  yields  to  his 
passion,  and  the  woman  asks  him  Why?  —  ex- 
pecting to  hear  that  his  vehement  love  for  her- 
self was  what  finally  overmastered  the  attractions 
of  active  duty,  he  will  be  obliged  to  tell  her  that 
his  love  for  her  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  lady  will  not  be 
much  gratified,  and  will  probably  tell  him  that  in 
this  case  he  had  better  have  stuck  to  his  duty.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  he  resists  his  passion,  and  his 
Christian  friends  ask  Why  ?  —  expecting  to  be 
edified  by  hearing  that  he  did  so  for  the  love  of 
Christ,  or  at  all  events  from  a  love  of  goodness 
which  a  Christian  education  had  implanted  in  him, 
they  will  be  even  less  pleased  than  the  lady,  when 
he  tells  them  that  his  final  decision  had  nothing  to 
do  with  Christ  or  with  goodness  either,  but,  though 
acting  as  it  did  on  his  motives,  was  in  itself  motive- 
less. In  that  case  they  will  say  to  him,  "Though 
you  happen  to  have  acted  like  a  Christian,  it  was 
a  mere  toss-up  that  you  did  so.  There  is  nothing 
to  show  that  to-morrow  you  may  not  do  just  the 
opposite;  and  fortuitous  morality  such  as  this  is 
not  morality  at  all."  And,  obviously,  this  criticism 
will  be  true.  The  result,  then,  that  we  reach  from 
considering  the  alternative  conceptions  of  will — 
the  conceptions  of  it  as  determined,  and  as  not 

269 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

determined  by  motive — is  this,  that  moral  will  or 
choice  depends  altogether  on  its  motive,  and  yet 
its  dependence  on  motive  reduces  moral  choice  to 
a  nullity. 

Thus  the  difficulty  involved  in  the  assertion  of 
the  reality  of  moral  freedom,  inheres  in  our  con- 
ception of  the  thing  freedom  itself,  before  we  have 
begun  to  inquire  into  its  compatibility  with  actual 
facts;  for  let  the  facts  be  what  they  may,  the 
difficulty  will  be  still  the  same.  An  act  wholly 
the  result  of  causation  is  an  act  morally  mean- 
ingless. An  act  wholly  uncaused  is  both  moral- 
ly meaningless  and  impossible.  Indeed,  were  we 
here  concerned  with  an  abstract  question  merely, 
and  were  considering  the  human  intelligence  as 
detached  non-human  spectators,  we  should  certain- 
ly reject  the  supposition  that  human  beings  could 
ever  imagine  such  a  thing  as  moral  freedom  exist- 
ing, just  as  we  should  the  supposition  that  they 
could  take  one  and  one  for  three.  But  when  we 
consider  human  beings  as  they  actually  are — as 
not  mere  speculative  intellects,  but  as  acting  and 
judging  creatures — we  find  that  there  is  no  con- 
ception which  forms  itself  in  their  minds  more 
instinctively,  and,  when  formed,  is  for  practical 
purposes  more  vivid  and  operative,  than  this  im- 
possible and  intellectually  self-stultifying  concep- 
tion of  moral  freedom.  That  such  is  the  case  is 
an  intellectual  paradox;  and  it  becomes  more  and 
more  paradoxical  the  more  closely  we  consider  it. 
For  the  conception  of  moral  freedom  does  not  lie 

270 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

in  our  minds  like  an  unimportant  sum  done  wrong- 
ly, whose  wrongness  we  fail  to  detect  because  we 
have  no  occasion  to  examine  it.  In  all  its  im- 
possible details  it  forms  a  practical  premise,  which 
is  implied  in  men's  judgment  and  conduct  every 
hour  and  every  moment  of  their  lives,  and  which 
only  escapes  being  rejected  as  abject  nonsense  be- 
cause human  nature  insists  on  assimilating  it  as  a 
fundamental  truth. 

That  this  is  so,  we  have  seen  in  our  Second 
Book,  where  the  whole  matter  was  set  forth  in 
detail.  Three-quarters  of  our  life  is  made  up  of 
the  judgments  which  we  form  of  one  another,  and 
of  the  judgments  which  we  each  of  us  suppose  that 
others  form  of  us.  All  these  judgments  are  founded 
on  the  pre-supposition  of  freedom;  and  when  this 
pre-supposition  is  suppressed — as  it  no  doubt  some- 
times is — we  have  to  do  with  cases  which,  even  if 
frequent,  are  pathological.  Every  time  we  are 
grateful  to  a  man  because  he  has  done  us  a  kind- 
ness, we  are  asserting  that  he  was  kind  when  he 
might  just  as  easily  have  been  callous.  Every 
time  we  forgive  a  man  for  having  done  us  an  in- 
jury, we  are  asserting  that  he  was  cruel  when  he 
might  just  as  well  have  been  kind.  Every  time 
we  honor  any  public  character  for  heroism  in  war, 
or  for  disinterested  sincerity  in  politics,  we  are 
asserting  that  he  did  for  his  country  what  he  was 
not  compelled  to  do.  And  yet  when  we  turn  from 
the  synthesis  effected  by  human  nature  in  action 
to  the  dilapidating  analysis  so  inevitably  effected 

271 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

by  the  intellect,  this  conception  of  freedom,  of 
non-compulsion — this  moral  light  of  life — becomes 
two  atomic  ideas,  each  morally  meaningless,  which 
no  force  of  the  intellect  can  induce  to  coalesce  into 
a  molecule. 

In  spite,  then,  of  the  witness  to  its  validity  which 
is  afforded  by  its  practical  consequences,  we  might 
still  be  driven  into  regarding  the  conception  of 
freedom  as  illusory  if  the  difficulties  involved  in  it 
were  characteristic  of  this  conception  only.  But 
it  is  not.  If  it  is  peculiar  in  any  way,  it  is  peculiar 
only  for  the  clearness  with  which  it  stands  out  as  a 
type  of  a  difficulty  that  meets  us  everywhere.  If 
the  conception  of  freedom  eludes  and  baffles  the 
intellect,  so  in  their  last  analysis  do  our  conceptions 
of  everything.  As  Spencer  has  shown,  we  cannot, 
without  self-contradiction,  conceive  space,  or  matter, 
or  motion,  or  causation,  or  our  own  conscious  ex- 
perience. Our  consciousness  is  always  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  present  moment;  but  the  present  mo- 
ment is  an  ever-disappearing  point,  which  has  gone 
before  we  can  name  it — which  holds  all,  and  yet  is 
nothing.  The  movement  of  matter  is  a  movement 
from  place  to  place  through  what  is  no  place,  and 
from  rest  to  movement  it  is  a  change  which,  com- 
pared with  rest,  is  infinite.  Matter  has  three  di- 
mensions, yet  resolves  itself  into  points  with  none. 
Nothing  can  be  thought  of  as  not  having  a  cause ; 
yet  all  causes  end  at  last  in  an  Absolute  which 
can  cause  nothing;  and  if  we  look  on  this  Ab- 
solute as  an  absolute  yet  personal  God,  God,  as 

272 


PERSONALITY    AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

Dean  Mansel  shows  us,  is  all  the  unthinkables  in 
one. 

The  difficulty,  then,  of  believing  in  moral  free- 
dom, is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  difficulty 
already  discussed  by  us,  of  believing  in  God's  good- 
ness when  we  consider  the  existence  of  evil ;  and  the 
difficulty  of  believing  in  this  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  the  difficulty  which  one  part  of  man — 
namely,  his  pure  reason — encounters,  when  man 
as  a  whole  is  compelled  to  believe  anything.  If, 
therefore,  in  spite  of  the  contradictions  involved 
in  it,  we  may  reasonably  believe,  as  we  have  seen 
we  may,  in  the  absolute  goodness  of  God,  we  are, 
so  far  as  any  a  priori  difficulties  are  concerned, 
licensed  to  believe  in  man's  moral  freedom  also. 
The  belief  that  a  plurality  of  uncaused  wills  or 
causes  can  co-exist  with  a  Cause  which  is  the  first 
cause  of  everything,  is  not  only  no  more  unthink- 
able than  the  belief  that  a  First  Cause  which  causes 
evil  is  good:  it  is  no  more  unthinkable  than  the 
belief  that  there  can  be  a  first  cause  at  all. 

And  here  we  may  recall  what  was  said  in  a 
previous  chapter,  that  if  once  the  existence  of 
human  freedom  is  admitted,  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality follows  as  a  natural  consequence,  or  at  all 
events  calls  for  no  separate  vindication:  for  the 
will  can  only  be  free  if  it  is  in  some  sense  inde- 
pendent of  the  body,  and  if  it  is  independent  of  the 
body,  there  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  it  need  die 
with  it.  Thus  the  three  beliefs  which  make  up 
natural  theism,  in  point  of  difficulty  stand  and  fall 

273 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

together — the  goodness  of  the  First  Cause,  the 
causal  independence  of  the  human  will,  and  the 
persistence  of  the  human  personality,  of  which  will 
is  the  essential  element.  Further,  the  difficulty 
which  the  intellect  encounters  when  it  sets  itself  to 
assert  these,  is  no  greater,  and  indeed  is  no  other, 
than  the  difficulty  which  it  has  already  surmount- 
ed in  asserting  its  own  existence,  the  existence  of 
other  human  intellects,  and  the  existence  of  the 
universe  in  general. 

This  is  the  case  so  far  as  the  intellect  itself  is 
concerned,  or  the  pure  reason  as  one  part  of  the 
concrete  man.  The  concrete  man,  however,  is, 
let  me  say  once  more,  not  made  up  of  intellect  or 
pure  reason  only;  and  when  we  consider  man  as 
he  is  in  actual  life,  we  shall  see  that  these  two  sets 
of  beliefs — the  theistic  beliefs,  and  the  others — are, 
in  one  important  respect,  related  to  him  in  different 
ways. 

The  difference  between  them  is  as  follows.  In 
the  absence  of  the  other  beliefs,  man  could  not 
exist  at  all.  They  are  thrust  on  him  by  his  senses, 
his  instincts,  and  his  experiences  in  acquiring  food. 
To  deny  them  would  reduce  him  to  idiocy,  which 
would  deprive  him  of  the  means  of  feeding  him- 
self. In  short,  without  these  beliefs  he  would  be 
wholly  helpless,  and  would  die.  But  the  conscious 
beliefs  of  theism  stand  on  another  footing.  With- 
out any  reference  to  these,  men  are  perfectly 
capable  of  supporting  themselves,  just  as  the  other 
animals  are.  Like  the  gregarious  animals,  they 

274 


PERSONALITY   AND   THE   UNIVERSE 

are  capable  of  forming  themselves  into  societies; 
and  in  virtue  of  their  superior  brain-power,  and 
more  especially  of  the  faculty  of  speech,  they  are 
capable  of  pushing  their  social  progress  farther  than 
is  possible  for  animals  less  amply  endowed.  The 
simple  sense-pleasures,  moreover,  the  simple  family 
instincts,  the  exhilaration  of  conscious  health,  the 
excitements  of  war  and  rivalry — these  also  men 
may  enjoy,  no  less  than  the  higher  animals,  without 
having  more  religion  than  ants,  or  bees,  or  beavers. 

Religious  beliefs,  then,  have  not  for  human 
nature  the  invincible  necessity  possessed  by  those 
just  referred  to  —  the  beliefs,  for  example,  in 
matter,  cause,  and  motion,  in  the  absence  of  which 
no  life  would  be  practicable.  They  are  pressed 
on  our  acceptance  only  by  elements  in  human 
nature  that  come  to  the  surface  gradually — the 
higher  forms  of  the  religious  passion,  the  higher 
intellectual  propensities  which  reach  out  towards 
truth  for  its  own  sake,  and  that  entire  system  of 
moral  and  emotional  aesthetics  which  is  the  inner 
substance  of  civilization ;  but  with  these,  as  we  have 
seen  already,  the  theistic  beliefs  are  so  associated 
that  the  former  could  never  flourish  and  fulfil  them- 
selves apart  from  an  assent  to  the  latter. 

The  practical  question  is,  then,  what  view  are 
we,  as  critics  of  our  own  nature  and  our  own 
history,  to  take  of  this  movement  which  we  in- 
stinctively call  upward,  and  which  unites  a  spon- 
taneous appeal  to  the  Principle  or  Heart  of  all 
things,  with  the  orderly  development  of  faculties 

275 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

otherwise  suppressed  and  wasted.  Are  we  to  say 
that  it  stands  for  a  delusion  of  our  own  minds — 
that  it  has  no  relation  to  anything  outside  itself— 
that  it  is  a  false  or  morbid  growth — that  it  has  no 
objective  value?  Or  are  we  to  reaffirm  the  value 
which  our  nature  instinctively  attributes  to  it? 
So  far  as  the  mere  intellect,  as  a  part  of  our  natures, 
is  concerned,  we  are  free  to  take  the  former  view,  if 
we  please ;  but  if  our  nature  in  its  integrity  insists, 
as  it  does  insist,  on  taking  the  latter,  the  result  will 
be  then  as  follows.  Just  as  we  must,  in  order  to 
live  in  societies,  recognize  social  organization  as  an 
advance  upon  social  anarchy;  and  just  as  we  must, 
in  order  to  live  at  all,  recognize  the  existence  of 
matter,  motion,  and  cause,  we  ourselves  being 
parts  of  the  material  universe,  and  our  progress  as 
gregarious  animals  being  part  of  the  cosmic  process ; 
so  shall  we  recognize  in  the  development  of  the  re- 
ligious passion,  and  the  gradual  flowering  out  of  the 
higher  forms  of  civilization,  merely  a  continuation 
of  the  process  whose  validity  we  have  already 
accepted;  and  the  one  will  be  as  truly  a  part  of 
the  cosmic  process  as  the  other.  Such  being  the 
case,  then,  the  fact  that,  in  order  to  live  at  all,  we 
have  been  obliged  to  accept  from  the  first  as  prac- 
tically valid  and  indubitable,  conceptions  of  cause, 
matter,  and  motion,  which,  when  analyzed,  contra- 
dict themselves,  will  already  have  broken  down, 
though  nothing  can  solve,  the  difficulty  in  those 
other  conceptions — the  conception  of  the  goodness 
of  the  almighty  Cause  of  all  things,  and  the  con- 

276 


PERSONALITY  AND  THE   UNIVERSE 

ception  of  the  freedom  of  our  own  dependent 
selves — which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  as  essential 
to  the  continuance  of  our  progress,  as  the  con- 
ceptions of  matter,  motion,  and  cause  are  to  the 
first  beginnings  of  it. 

Does  this  argument  seem  to  the  reader  a  mere 
argument  in  the  air?  Does  it  leave  him  cold? 
Does  it  carry  with  it  no  conviction?  If  it  does 
not  convince  him  immediately,  let  him  not  think 
the  worse  of  it.  True  argument,  in  such  a  case 
as  the  present,  can  never  do  its  work  suddenly. 
It  is  like  an  embrocation  which  the  patient  must 
rub  in  for  himself.  Religious  belief  dies  slowly 
under  argument.  It  revives  itself  no  less  slowly. 
There  is,  however,  more  to  add,  which  will  help 
to  give  actuality  to  what  has  been  said  already. 


V 

BELIEF    UNDER    SCIENTIFIC    COMPULSION 

LET  us  suppose  that  some  man,  much  attached  to 
his  wife,  learns  that  she  has,  while  away  from  him, 
lost  her  life  in  a  shipwreck;  and  that  subsequently 
a  stranger  discovers  traces  of  her  which  indicate 
that  she  is  still  alive.  The  stranger  communicates 
these  evidences  to  the  husband ;  and  if  they  appear 
to  be  trustworthy,  the  husband's  hopes  will  rise. 
It  will,  however,  have  been  no  part  of  the  stranger's 
business  to  color  the  facts  brought  forward  by  him 
with  any  emotion  of  his  own.  Indeed,  the  colder 
and  more  prosaic  he  is  in  dealing  with  the  various 
details,  the  greater  is  the  confidence  which  the 
husband  is  likely  to  put  in  him.  The  same  is  the 
case  with  arguments  relating  to  religious  belief,  such 
as  those  which  have  been  brought  forward  in  the 
present  volume.  They  do  not  aim,  and  it  is  not 
their  function  to  aim,  at  creating  in  the  reader  any 
religious  emotion,  any  more  than  it  would  be  the 
business  of  our  stranger  to  create  in  the  husband  any 
love  for  his  lost  wife,  or  any  pleasure  at  the  thought 
of  recovering  her.  The  emotion  must  be  left  to 
take  care  of  itself,  and  may  indeed  be  safely  trusted 
to  do  so. 

278 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

If  we  take  religion  in  its  deepest  and  most 
general  sense,  we  shall  find  that  what  it  suffers 
from  under  existing  conditions,  is  not  any  lower- 
ing of  vitality  in  the  religious  impulses  as  such, 
but  an  intellectual  difficulty  in  believing  that  they 
possess  any  corresponding  object.  So  long  as  the 
existence  of  such  an  object  is  incredible,  the 
emotion  relapses  on  itself,  and  is  necessarily  set 
aside  as  a  delusion,  Christianity,  or  any  other 
definite  creed  being  a  delusion  within  a  delusion. 
But  once  let  the  intellectual  difficulties,  which 
inhibit  belief  in  the  object  of  religion,  be  done 
away  with,  and  all  the  energies  and  faculties 
which  have  resulted  in  religion  previously,  will 
inevitably  reassert  themselves  with  all  their  old 
vitality,  whether  they  ultimately  express  them- 
selves in  terms  of  any  existing  creed  or  no.  The 
general  disease  is  intellectual;  it  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  emotions.  The  required  remedy  is 
intellectual  also. 

The  line  of  argument,  however,  pursued  in  the 
present  volume  is  by  no  means  so  purely  negative, 
or  so  purely  permissive,  in  its  results,  as  those  ob- 
servations may  perhaps  seem  to  suggest.  Though 
its  results  are  only  permissive  as  regards  religious 
emotion,  they  are,  as  regards  the  fundamentals 
of  religious  belief,  compulsory.  In  the  first  place, 
it  does  not  merely  show  that  the  scientific  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe  is  compatible  with  a 
belief  in  a  purposive  and  intelligent  First  Cause. 
It  shows  that  such  an  interpretation  of  the  uni- 

279 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

verse  is  logically  incomplete  until  the  existence 
of  a  purposive  First  Cause  is  affirmed.  It  reaches 
this  result  by  a  use  of  the  very  means  which,  ac- 
cording to  current  opinion,  can  lead  only  to  its 
destruction.  Whereas  the  official  apologists  of 
religion,  in  dealing  with  a  thinker  like  Professor 
Haeckel  for  example,  seek  to  discredit  his  atheistic 
conclusions  by  attacking  with  random  futility  the 
facts  of  the  case  as  stated  by  him,  our  own  argu- 
ment has  shown  that  his  facts,  and  indeed  his 
method  of  presenting  them,  only  require  a  fuller 
and  more  rigid  development,  in  order  to  lead  us 
to  one  aspect,  at  all  events,  of  the  very  Power  which 
theology  postulates,  and  which  Professor  Haeckel 
denies.  Professor  Haeckel's  philosophy,  in  short, 
though  he  imagines  it  to  be  non-theistic,  is  a  theol- 
ogy in  the  process  of  being  hatched ;  and  the  entire 
policy  of  our  religious  apologists  hitherto  has  not 
been  to  hatch  the  chicken,  but  if  possible  to  destroy 
the  egg.  Or  we  may  say  that  such  a  philosophy 
leads  towards  a  theology,  like  a  long  bridge  of 
which  only  the  last  arch  is  wanting;  and  that  the 
clergy,  instead  of  trying  to  construct  this,  devote 
the  whole  of  their  efforts  to  pulling  the  others  down. 
Science,  then,  in  proportion  as  it  is  completely 
rationalized,  not  merely  permits,  but  actually  com- 
pels the  reason  to  recognize  a  purposive  Mind  as 
the  First  Cause  of  the  universe,  thus  completely 
revolutionizing  the  atheistic  or  agnostic  conclusion 
to  which  it  seemed  to  lead,  when  its  implications 
were  insufficiently  realized;  and  it  is  difficult  to 

280 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

exaggerate  the  profound  change  in  opinion  which 
must  gradually  take  place  when  the  recognition 
of  this  fact  becomes  general.  The  mere  recogni- 
tion, however,  of  a  purposive  cosmic  Mind,  though 
it  constitutes  a  rudimentary  theology,  is  not  itself 
a  religion.  In  order  to  become  a  religion  it  must 
be  supplemented  by  the  two  other  beliefs,  that  the 
cosmic  Mind  is  good,  and  that  man  is  a  free  agent. 
Both  these  beliefs  we  have  seen  to  be  beset  by 
difficulties  which  are  for  the  intellect  insoluble,  and 
must  be  frankly  accepted  as  such.  By  attempting 
to  solve  them  we  merely  make  ourselves  ludicrous. 
But  though  we  cannot  solve  or  even  lessen  them 
by  any  exercise  of  the  pure  reason,  we  have  the 
highest  warrant  in  pure  reason  itself,  for  disregard- 
ing them,  if  the  practical  reason  gives  us  grounds 
for  doing  so;  and  the  practical  reason,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  in  this  matter  imperative.  It  coerces  us 
partly  by  means  of  the  religious  impulse  which  is 
ingrained  in  us ;  but  partly  also  by  means  of  the 
common-sense,  the  energies,  the  culture,  and  the 
intellectual  shrewdness,  which  we  possess  as  men 
who  are  civilized,  and  who  have  every  intention 
of  remaining  so.  We  have  seen  all  this  already; 
but  there  is  one  aspect  of  the  situation  which  yet 
remains  to  be  elucidated. 

We  have  followed  Spencer  in  the  analysis  which, 
with  the  aid  of  an  eminent  theologian,  he  made  of 
the  contradictions  in  thought  underlying  the  two 
sets  of  conceptions,  religious  and  scientific,  out  of 
both,  or  out  of  one  or  other  of  which  the  human 

281 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

mind  has  to  build  up  its  universe.  We  shall,  if 
we  consider  his  presentation  of  the  case  again,  see 
that,  in  one  respect,  he  has  left  it  only  half  com- 
pleted. He  gives  us  Dean  Hansel's  analysis  of 
the  religious  difficulties  first;  he  then  gives  us  his 
own  analysis  of  the  scientific,  as  though  he  were 
arranging  them  in  two  parallel  columns,  and  show- 
ing that  they  were  analogous  in  the  sense  of  being 
equally  insoluble.  His  mind  seems  not  to  have 
taken  the  farther  step  of  realizing  that  the  two 
sets  of  difficulties  are  not  only  analogous,  but  the 
same.  But  that  such  they  are  will  be  shown  us  by 
very  little  reflection — the  same  identical  difficulty 
expressed  in  two  different  languages.  A  few  ex- 
amples will  be  sufficient  to  illustrate  this. 

How,  the  theologian  asks,  could  the  Absolute, 
the  Infinite,  the  Perfect,  the  Unrelated  God  ever 
become  a  Cause  ?  How  could  He  have  caused  the 
universe?  How,  having  been  infinite  and  perfect 
from  all  eternity,  could  a  universe  ever  become 
necessary  to  Him  when  it  had  not  been  necessary 
to  Him  always?  Or  how  could  He  make  any- 
thing be,  which  had  not  been  always  in  Himself? 
This  is  precisely  the  same  difficulty  as  that  which 
science  encounters  when  it  traces  back  physical 
phenomena  to  their  simpler  and  ever  simpler 
causes.  All  evolution,  says  Spencer,  according  to 
the  logic  of  science,  starts  from  the  simplicity  of 
an  absolutely  homogeneous  substance;  but  an  ab- 
solutely homogeneous  substance,  he  admits,  would 
be  absolutely  stable.  It  could  never  change.  It 

282 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

would  be  always  that  which  it  had  always  been. 
Science  more  recent  than  Spencer's  has  dwelt 
more  minutely  than  he  did  on  the  specific  concep- 
tion of  ether  as  the  primary  basis  and  substance 
of  all  evolved  phenomena.  Spencer's  difficulty  is 
repeated  by  it  in  clearer  and  more  delicate  terms. 
The  ether  is  conceived  of  as  non-atomic  and  con- 
tinuous, and  is  supposed  to  contract,  or  to  knot 
itself  into  atoms,  in  such  and  such  different  places. 
But  in  a  substance  which  is  really  continuous 
neither  expansion  nor  contraction  is  thinkable ; 
and  a  substance  which  is  not  only  continuous,  but 
also  alike  everywhere,  cannot  be  thought  of  as 
behaving  at  any  one  point  in  a  manner  different 
from  that  in  which  it  behaves  everywhere.  Men 
of  science  have,  in  order  to  escape  this  difficulty, 
been  driven  to  suppose  that  the  ether  is  subject 
to  different  strains.  But  unless  the  strains  and 
the  ether  belong  to  two  different  universes,  which 
science  denies,  the  composition  of  the  ether  must 
vary  with  the  strain  to  which  it  is  locally  subject ; 
and  in  any  case  its  condition,  instead  of  being  one 
and  simple,  must  be  as  specifically  complex  as  the 
universe  to  which  its  system  of  strains  gave  rise. 
It  would,  if  this  were  not  so,  be  simple  ether  still. 
Thus  science  in  its  search  for  an  explanation  of 
everything,  is  always  pointing  towards  some  unity 
which,  when  reached,  can  explain  nothing;  while 
theology,  in  the  same  search,  always  points  to  an 
absolute  God,  who  ceases  to  be  an  explanation  of 
anything  the  moment  He  is  thought  of  as  absolute. 

283 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

The  identity  of  these  two  difficulties,  the  physical 
difficulty  and  the  theological,  is  obvious  from  the 
details  of  both,  at  all  events  as  a  superficial  fact; 
and  that  the  identity  is  not  superficial  can  be  yet 
more  clearly  shown  by  a  glance  at  certain  details 
in  the  relations  between  physical  science  and  meta- 
physics. When  metaphysicians  in  pre-scientific 
days  argued  and  quarrelled  about  the  faculties  of 
the  human  mind — about  reason,  understanding,  in- 
tellect, ideas,  sensation,  sense-images,  and  so  forth 
—they  reached  many  conclusions,  and  quarrelled 
over  many  issues,  which  from  age  to  age  were 
roughly  similar  on  the  one  hand,  but  which  ex- 
hibited, on  the  other,  all  sorts  of  subordinate  dif- 
ferences. There  was  no  definite  progress.  There 
were  no  decisive  demonstrations.  No  philosopher 
could  be  sure  even  that  the  terms  used  by  him 
were  understood  by  others  in  precisely  his  own 
sense.  He  could  not  be  quite  clear  as  to  what  his 
own  sense  was  himself.  There  was  and  there 
could  be  no  approach  to  exactness,  because  there 
was  nothing  external  to  which  the  definitions  were 
referable.  But  when  science  began  to  unravel  the 
secrets  of  the  action  of  the  brain — the  brain,  which 
for  men  like  Hegel  was  nothing  but  so  much  pulp, 
or  so  much  jeweller's  wadding  in  which  the  mind 
was  packed — it  was  seen  that  the  mental  faculties 
which  the  metaphysicians  had  loosely  differentiated, 
actually  possessed  in  the  brain  objective  organs 
that  corresponded  to  them ;  and  the  results  of  this 
discovery  are  illustrated  in  a  very  interesting  way 

284 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

by  a  passing  remark  of  Professor  Haeckel's  on 
the  sensational  philosophy  of  Hume.  "The  work 
of  'pure  reason'  is  accomplished,"  he  says,  "by  the 
thought-centres,  bringing  about  an  association  or 
combination  of  the  impressions  received  by  the 
sense-centres;  and  by  the  important  distinction 
which  we  have  thus  learned  to  make,  we  avoid 
the  error  of  the  older  sensualism,  such  as  Hume's 
— namely,  that  all  knowledge  depends  on  sense- 
action  alone."  Now  this  error,  to  which  Professor 
Haeckel  alludes,  had  been  attacked  by  metaphy- 
sicians on  purely  subjective  grounds,  long  before 
the  study  of  the  brain  by  scientific  methods  was 
dreamed  of.  To  the  dictum  that  "  there  is  nothing 
in  the  intellect  that  was  not  first  in  sense,"  Leibnitz 
had  answered,  "Nothing  but  the  intellect  itself." 
Here,  then,  in  the  physics  of  the  brain  we  have 
an  elaborate  metaphysical  argument,  which  could 
never  be  definitely  thought,  and  still  less  could  be 
definitely  established,  translated  into  a  physical  fact 
which  might  quite  conceivably  be  photographed. 

The  result  of  these  considerations,  which,  as  the 
reader  will  see,  flow  from  those  set  forth  in  our 
First  Book,  may  be  illustrated  and  summed  up  as 
follows.  When  the  structure  of  the  brain  began  to 
be  accurately  examined,  it  was  found  impossible  to 
distinguish  the  nerves  from  the  surrounding  tissue, 
and  so  trace  their  structure,  until  an  Italian  scientist 
discovered  that  their  inner  substance  was  absorbent 
of  salts  of  silver  which  stained  them  a  deep  black ; 
and  their  intricate  ramifications  were  in  this  way 

285 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

at  once  revealed.  What  such  stainings  are  to  the 
brain-nerves  when  these  last  are  examined  under 
the  microscope,  the  processes  of  matter  as  a  whole 
are  to  the  processes  of  mind.  They  are  the  same 
facts,  general  or  particular,  saturated  with  a  certain 
something  the  stain  of  which  makes  them  visible, 
investing  what  was  once  vague  with  definite  form 
and  movement. 

When  this  truth  is  grasped,  we  shall  see  that 
science,  as  such,  presents  us  with  no  problems 
which  are  in  any  way  peculiar  to  itself.  We  shall 
see  that,  contrary  to  the  idea  hitherto  prevalent 
among  all  parties,  modern  science,  with  its  elaborate 
evolutionary  monism,  does  not  present  us,  in  re- 
spect of  theistic  belief,  with  any  difficulties  which 
are  new  or  in  any  exclusive  sense  scientific,  or  which 
did  not  vaguely  inhere  in  all  natural  theology  from 
the  first.  All  that  it  has  done  directly  has  been 
to  accentuate,  to  systematize,  to  externalize  them 
—to  put  them  before  us  in  a  form  in  which  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  forget  or  to  disregard  them. 

But  though  this  is  all  that  it  has  done  with  re- 
gard to  these  difficulties  directly,  it  has  affected 
them  indirectly,  in  another  and  yet  more  important 
way.  It  has  shown  us  that  the  difficulties  inherent 
in  religious  belief  do  not  stand  by  themselves ;  that 
they  are  no  more  exclusively  religious  than  they 
are  exclusively  scientific,  but  are  merely  special 
examples  of  a  difficulty  much  more  general,  which 
inheres  in  all  constructive  belief  of  any  kind.  This 
difficulty  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  man,  as 

286 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

he  primarily  confronts  existence — his  own  and  that 
of  the  universe — finds  himself  standing  on  an  island, 
which  is  surrounded  by  a  river  of  logical  or  intel- 
lectual contradictions ;  that  every  belief  which  will 
enable  him  to  take  any  action  at  all,  lies  on  the  bank 
beyond ;  and  that  he  must  necessarily  immerse  him- 
self in  the  water — he  must  necessarily  traverse  this 
Styx — in  order  to  reach  any  one  of  them.  His 
belief  in  his  own  existence,  and  in  that  of  the 
material  world,  require  that  he  should  take  the 
plunge,  no  less  than  his  belief  in  God's  goodness, 
and  in  his  own  freedom;  and  if  this  does  not  seem 
to  be  the  case,  the  reason,  which  we  have  already 
indicated,  may  be  stated  once  again. 

The  constructive  beliefs  which  we  may  justifiably 
call  the  lower — those  which  are  necessary  for  the 
existence  of  the  gregarious  human  animal — provoke 
no  contradiction;  for  to  contradict  them  would  be 
practical  suicide.  No  one  is  tempted,  for  example, 
to  deny  the  reality  of  motion,  let  the  difficulties 
latent  in  the  conception  of  it  be,  for  the  intellect, 
what  they  may.  But  religious  beliefs  are  neces- 
sary for  our  higher  existence  only.  We  can,  as  in- 
telligent animals,  get  on  quite  well  without  them. 
They  can  therefore  be  denied  without  immediate 
absurdity ;  and  since  it  is  an  essential  characteristic 
of  them  that  they  act  as  goads  or  irritants,  they 
encounter  for  that  very  reason  a  certain  amount  of 
opposition.  But  the  contradictions  involved  in 
them,  on  which  the  critical  spirit  fixes,  are  merely 
those  which,  taken  in  their  lower  connections,  the 

287 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

human  animal  accepts  without  question,  in  order  to 
think  at  all.  If  we  suppose,  for  example,  that  what 
we  call  the  acts  of  our  own  will,  are  really  effects 
due  ultimately  to  the  action  of  the  First  Cause,  we 
escape  the  contradiction  incident  to  the  supposition 
that  our  will  is  free ;  but  we  are  escaping  from  one 
mode  of  the  contradiction,  not  from  the  contradic- 
tion itself;  for  the  conception  of  a  First  Cause,  on 
which  we  subside  with  relief,  is  no  less  self-contra- 
dictory than  the  conception  of  freedom  which  we 
repudiate. 

Thus,  then,  when  we  confront  the  general  prob- 
lem of  existence,  when  we  consider  the  various  theo- 
ries which  it  is  possible  to  form  with  regard  to  it, 
and  when  we  find  that  we  are  met  by  underlying 
contradictions  everywhere,  there  are  two  courses 
open  to  us,  between  which  we  are  compelled  to 
choose.  One  is  to  abstain  deliberately  from  form- 
ing any  theory  at  all,  which  might  reasonably 
affiliate  our  lives  to  the  universal  order  of  things, 
because  all  such  beliefs  at  starting  involve  a  viola- 
tion of  reason.  The  other  is  to  disregard  this  fact 
and  form  some  belief  of  the  required  kind  in  spite 
of  it.  The  first  course  is  self -condemned,  because, 
while  affording  us  no  escape  from  the  difficulty 
which  it  aims  at  avoiding,  it  is  simply  an  act  of 
intellectual  despair  or  fatuity,  which  reduces  human 
existence  to  its  bare,  animal  elements.  If  we  do 
not  adopt  this  course,  we  must  necessarily  adopt 
the  other.  We  must  form  some  theory,  or  assent 
to  some  system  of  beliefs,  in  accordance  with  which 

288 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

man's  higher  life  will  be  able  to  sustain  and  develop 
itself. 

In  other  words,  the  concrete  nature  which  we 
possess  as  active  and  progressive  beings,  stands 
over  us  with  a  drawn  sword,  saying  Believe,  or  die. 
It  says  this  first  with  regard  to  our  life  as  animals ; 
and  without  hesitation  our  intellect  swallows  the 
contradictions  latent  in  the  beliefs  which  an  animal 
existence  necessitates.  Our  concrete  nature  then 
repeats  the  injunction  with  regard  to  our  farther 
development,  saying  to  us,  Believe,  or  stagnate. 
Unless,  then,  we  are  content  to  deny  our  own 
humanity,  and  accept  the  life  of  mere  gregarious 
animals  as  enough  for  us,  we  are  compelled  to  con- 
struct and  assent  to,  some  farther  beliefs  of  some 
kind,  which  shall  form  the  intellectual  skeleton  on 
which  our  mental  civilization  shall  support  itself. 
Only  a  limited  number  of  such  beliefs  is  possible; 
and  all  being  encumbered  with  the  same  negative 
difficulty,  our  compulsory  choice  can  be  guided  by 
one  principle  only.  We  must  choose  the  beliefs 
which  are  most  in  consonance  positively  with  our 
external  environment  on  the  one  hand,  and  with 
our  internal  needs  on  the  other. 

To  elucidate  this  fact  has  been  the  aim  of  the 
present  volume;  and  the  conclusions,  in  respect  of 
it,  to  which  our  argument  has  conducted  us,  have 
been  as  follows.  The  only  system  of  beliefs  on 
which  human  civilization  can  sustain  itself  is  a 
system  of  beliefs  which,  when  brought  into  contact 
with  the  world  of  scientific  knowledge,  and  when  so 

289 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

analyzed  that  its  logical  implications  become  ex- 
plicit, emerges  as  the  creed  of  theism — that  is  to 
say,  a  creed  which  attributes  to  the  Cosmic  Prin- 
ciple as  a  whole,  mind,  intelligence,  purpose,  feeling, 
and  goodness,  in  a  sense  congruous  to  the  sense  in 
which  we  recognize  these  qualities  in  ourselves; 
which,  in  spite  of  our  own  dependence  on  the  uni- 
versal Cause,  attributes  to  ourselves  also  a  true 
causal  personality;  and  which,  in  spite  of  our  de- 
pendence on  the  body  of  which  our  mind  seems  the 
mere  function,  attributes  to  ourselves  individual 
permanence  also. 

The  truth  of  these  conclusions  is  illustrated  in 
a  most  remarkable  way  by  two  great  religions  of 
the  East,  which  may  at  first  sight  seem  to  cast  a 
doubt  on  it.  To  one  of  these — namely,  Buddhism 
— reference  has  been  made  already.  Though  pure 
Buddhism  expresses  itself  as  a  formal  denial  of 
God,  two  of  the  doctrines  of  theism — that  the  in- 
dividual life  has  a  will  resident  wholly  in  itself, 
and  that  the  individual  life  does  not  die  with  the 
body — are  essential  parts,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the 
Buddhist  system,  which  without  them  would  be 
practically  meaningless;  while  the  formal  denial 
of  God,  for  which  Buddhism  is  remarkable,  is,  in 
its  mystical  conception  of  Nirvana,  which  even 
Gautama  would  not  define,  merely  an  inarticulate 
affirmation  of  what  it  seems  to  deny.  But  more 
interesting  still  than  Buddhism  is  the  practical  re- 
ligion of  the  Japanese,  as  manifested  by  that  na- 
tion in  their  heroic  struggle  with  Russia.  •  The  Jap- 

290 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

anese  religion,  as  a  principle  of  national  life,  is  in 
many  respects  at  present  unintelligible  to  the  West- 
ern mind ;  but  Japanese  writers  have  made  it  abun- 
dantly clear  that  it  has  its  root  in  the  idea,  which 
is  essentially  non  -  Buddhistic,  of  the  permanence 
of  the  individual  life,  not  of  its  final  extinction; 
and  that  with  this  idea  are  associated  two  others, 
one  of  which  is  locally  patriotic,  the  other  purely 
mythological,  the  Japanese  nation  generally,  and 
the  imperial  house  in  particular,  being  regarded  as 
the  privileged  progeny  of  certain  of  the  heavenly 
bodies.  When  the  Japanese  as  a  nation  shall  have 
assimilated  the  science  of  the  West,  not  only  in 
its  details,  but  in  its  full  philosophic  significance, 
these  mythological  elements  must,  it  is  obvious,  be 
eliminated,  as  the  legend  of  the  six  days'  creation 
is  being  eliminated  from  popular  Christianity ;  and 
what  then  we  shall  find  remaining  will  be  some 
conception  of  existence  logically  indistinguishable 
from  the  theism  of  the  Western  world. 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  science,  even 
when  made  one  with  philosophy  and  with  natural 
theology,  is  nothing  more  than  a  purely  intellectual 
system,  whereas  action,  heroism,  art,  and  religion 
as  an  active  principle,  result  from  man's  nature  as 
a  whole,  of  which  the  intellect  is  no  more  than  a 
part.  But  the  emotional  and  energetic  elements 
of  man's  nature  being  given,  the  intellect  supplies 
them  with  the  means  of  expressing  and  fulfilling 
themselves;  and  in  proportion  as  the  intellect  de- 
velops itself  under  the  severe  and  cosmopolitan  dis- 

291 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

cipline  of  science,  it  must  gradually  tend  to  make, 
among  all  civilized  races,  any  conception  of  exist- 
ence, other  than  the  theistic,  impossible. 

Science  will  thus,  in  accordance  with  what  I 
observed  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  chapter, 
play  a  direct  part  in  the  stimulation  of  active  re- 
ligion, by  forcing  the  waters  of  belief  to  flow  in  a 
given  channel,  and  thus  become  capable,  like  a  mill- 
stream,  of  doing  active  and  definite  work,  instead 
of  wasting  themselves  in  impotent  rivulets,  or 
stagnating  in  a  shallow  flood.  In  particular,  it  will 
gradually  render  impossible  that  absurd  and  un- 
stable attitude  which,  at  the  close  of  the  last  cen- 
tury was  dignified  by  the  name  of  Agnosticism. 
The  real  position  of  those  who  called  themselves 
Agnostics  was  this.  Science  having,  as  they  sup- 
posed, expelled  God  from  nature,  they  practically 
looked  on  the  change  that  was  thus  effected  as  com- 
parable to  man's  loss  of  a  sort  of  celestial  school- 
master, who  had  indeed  managed  his  business  for 
him,  but  in  many  ways  was  very  objectionable; 
and  the  school-master  being  dead,  they  conceived 
of  the  human  race  as  left  in  a  free,  even  if  in  rather 
a  forlorn  condition,  to  construct  for  itself,  in  de- 
fiance of  nature,  a  little  private  universe  of  its  own, 
like  a  sort  of  Dotheboys  Hall  which  has  got  rid 
of  its  Squeers,  and  whose  orphans  propose  hence- 
forward to  educate  and  to  board  themselves.  But 
such  Agnostics  practically  failed  to  realize  what  was 
in  theory  even  for  themselves  a  truism,  that  the  pre- 
cise train  of  reasoning  which  freed  them  from  an  in- 

292 


BELIEF    UNDER    COMPULSION 

telligent  God,  reduced  them  to  mere  puppets  of  that 
nature  which  it  was  their  enlightened  programme 
to  oppose.  Man  is  either  a  free  being,  with  an  intel- 
ligent Deity  as  his  counterpart,  or  else  he  and  his 
fellows  are  a  mere  procession  of  marionettes,  which 
strut,  or  jig,  or  laugh,  or  groan,  or  caper,  accord- 
ing as  their  wires  are  pulled  by  forces  admittedly 
less  intelligent  than  themselves.  In  proportion  as 
science  becomes  rationalized,  and  its  conclusions 
more  clearly  understood,  this  latter  conception  of 
existence  will  become  more  and  more  practically 
intolerable,  and  our  Agnostics  will,  whether  they 
like  the  operation  or  no,  be  forced  to  accept  the 
theism  which  is  its  only  intellectual  alternative. 

Such  an  ultimate  revolution  in  belief  being,  ac- 
cording to  the  arguments  of  the  present  volume, 
inevitable,  it  remains  for  us  to  consider  briefly  the 
ethos  and  the  concrete  forms  with  which  belief, 
when  thus  re-liberated,  is  likely  hereafter  to  asso- 
ciate itself. 


VI 
RELIGION    AND   RELIGIONS 

ONE  of  the  most  cultivated  and  clear-sighted  of 
the  recent  apologists  of  Christianity  has  observed 
that,  in  proportion  as  the  scientific  objections  to  re- 
ligion are,  either  rationally  or  irrationally,  allowed 
to  sink  into  the  background,  a  difficulty  in  the  way 
of  Christian  belief  is  asserting  itself  more  danger- 
ous even  than  the  objections  which  oppose  them- 
selves to  religious  belief  of  any  kind.  This  difficul- 
ty consists,  he  says,  in  the  tendency  of  the  modern 
world,  as  soon  as  it  wakes  up  from  what  he  calls 
"the  nightmare  of  materialism,"  to  construct  its 
religion  de  novo  in  a  spirit  of  "  extravagant  eclecti- 
cism," instead  of  re-submitting  itself  to  the  "  unique 
authority  of  Christ."  In  other  words,  what  Chris- 
tianity has  most  to  dread  in  the  future  is  the  rivalry 
of  other  religions,  rather  than  atheistic  antagonism. 
" The  patient,"  he  says,  "  has  got  his  head  free  from 
the  grip  of  the  dentist's  chair;  but  with  the  freedom 
has  come  a  rejection  of  all  leadership."1 

The    above    observations    are   most   true ;   and 

1  See  Religion  and  Science,  by  P.  N.  Wagget,  M.A.  Long- 
mans, 1904. 

294 


RELIGION    AND    RELIGIONS 

they  form  a  fitting  comment  on  the  arguments  of 
the  present  volume.  These  arguments  do  nothing 
whatever  to  suggest  the  special  validity  of  the 
Christian  or  any  other  religious  creed.  They  mere- 
ly exhibit,  as  demanded  both  by  the  practical  and 
the  scientific  reason,  an  assent  to  those  general 
and  fundamental  beliefs,  of  which  the  Christian 
interpretation  is  but  one  among  many  competing 
variants ;  and  to  those  who  believe  in  Christianity, 
and  to  those  who  do  not,  it  is  desirable  to  point  out 
two  sets  of  considerations. 

In  the  first  place,  those  who  believe  in  the  Chris- 
tian creed,  and  whose  whole  hopes  for  the  future 
depend  on  its  continued  ascendency,  should  reflect 
that  if,  with  the  further  development  of  thought,  the 
scientific  objections  to  religion  as  such  are  removed, 
and  if  religious  belief  in  reviving  tends,  as  it  no 
doubt  will,  to  clothe  itself  in  a  number  of  new  and 
experimental  forms,  the  Christian  religion  is  merely 
returning  to  the  position  which  it  occupied  original- 
ly when  it  conquered  the  Western  world.  The  rise 
of  Christianity  was  not  a  victory  over  atheism,  or 
anything  resembling  the  negations  of  modern  sci- 
ence. It  was  a  victory  over  other  religions  which 
it  showed  to  be  less  valid  than  itself  in  interpreting 
and  ministering  to  the  moral  needs  of  mankind.  The 
very  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  contained 
no  generic  novelty  for  many  at  all  events  of  those 
to  whom  the  event  was  first  preached.  For  ex- 
ample, when  the  fame  of  Christ  came  to  the  ears  of 
Herod,  what  at  once  suggested  itself  to  him  as  the 

295 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

most  natural  explanation  of  the  matter  was  that  the 
new  prophet  was  the  Baptist  who  had  risen  from 
the  dead,  and  was,  in  his  risen  body,  invested  with 
miraculous  powers.  The  one  peculiarity,  then,  at- 
taching to  the  doctrine  of  the  Christians  was,  not 
that  there  had  been  a  resurrection  of  a  man,  but 
that  there  had  been  a  resurrection  of  the  man  Christ. 
And  with  all  the  doctrines  preached  by  them  the 
case  was  similar.  They  were  not  peculiar  because 
they  were  miraculous,  or  attested  by  alleged  mir- 
acles. Their  peculiarity  lay  in  the  peculiar  charac- 
ter of  the  appeal  which  they  made,  partly  to  the 
philosophical,  but  mainly  to  the  moral  nature  of 
man.  If  Christ's  teaching  was  the  leaven,  human 
nature  was  the  meal;  and  it  was  only  because  the 
meal  possessed  certain  natural  qualities  that  the 
supernatural  leaven  produced  the  desired  effect  on 
it.  Just,  then,  as  Christianity  only  gained  its  as- 
cendency in  consequence  of  its  meeting  the  demands 
of  human  nature  in  the  past,  so,  it  is  obvious,  its 
ascendency  can  only  continue  on  condition  that  it 
continues  to  meet  the  demands  of  human  nature  in 
the  future.  In  saying  this,  I  am  saying  nothing 
more  than  all  true  Christians  must  necessarily  be- 
lieve themselves,  and  if  they  are  firmly  convinced 
that  their  religion,  and  none  other,  was  specially  re- 
vealed by  God,  they  will  prepare  themselves  with 
confidence  to  show  the  modern  world,  not  that 
Christianity  is  better  than  no  religion  at  all,  but 
that  it  is  better  than  any  other  religion  which  the 
modern  world  can  devise. 

296 


RELIGION    AND    RELIGIONS 

And  now  from  the  position  of  the  Christians,  let 
us  turn  to  that  of  their  opponents.  The  same  con- 
ditions which  will  give  renewed  freedom  to  Chris- 
tianity will  give  renewed  freedom,  as  the  writer 
just  quoted  anticipates,  to  any  other  form  of  relig- 
ion which  may  plausibly  hope  to  compete  with  it, 
and  will  arm  the  opponents  of  Christianity  with 
a  variety  of  new  weapons.  It  is  entirely  beyond 
the  scope  of  the  present  volume  to  debate  which 
side  is  likely  to  have  the  advantage ;  but  it 
will  be  desirable  briefly  to  indicate  the  main 
differences  of  aspect  which  the  situation  will 
wear  for  those  who  view  it  from  different  stand- 
points. 

If  we  assume  it  to  be  admitted  by  all  those  con- 
cerned that  the  human  race  is  related  to  some 
intelligent  Deity,  the  nature  of  its  relation  to  this 
Deity  may  be  conceived  of  in  three  ways.  It  may 
be  conceived  of  as  that  of  a  son  to  a  benevolent  but 
offended  Father ;  or  as  that  of  a  brother  or  ally  to 
a  Power  superior,  but  cognate  to  himself ;  or  as  that 
of  a  lover  aspiring  towards  union  with  some  myste- 
rious beloved.  And  with  each  of  these  conceptions 
of  man's  relation  to  the  Deity  is  associated  a  dis- 
tinguishing moral  attitude  which  corresponds  to 
it.  In  the  first  case  it  is  one,  as  theologians  call 
it,  of  abjection.  In  approaching  the  Deity  man  is 
burdened  with  a  sense  of  sin.  He  asks  for  love 
knowing  that  he  deserves  anger;  and  all  life  for 
him  is  a  process  of  austere  and  quasi-penal  disci- 
pline. In  the  second  case  the  attitude  is  one  not  of 

297 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

abjection  but  of  self-reliance — of  religious  ambition 
rather  than  religious  worship.  Man,  though  con- 
scious of  many  degrading  frailties,  looks  on  his 
errors  as  a  skater's  falls  on  ice,  which  require  that 
he  should  pick  himself  up  and  think  no  more  about 
them,  rather  than  as  sins  to  be  washed  out  by 
sorrow.  He  aspires  to  emulate  the  Divine,  instead 
of  being  abashed  before  it,  to  be  its  companion 
rather  than  its  vassal,  and  to  walk  with  the  Per- 
fect Mind,  though  hand  passibus  cequis.  In  the 
third  case  the  attitude  is  that  of  a  wooer  rather 
than  a  friend  or  worshipper.  It  differs  from  the 
first  in  its  boldness,  and  it  differs  from  the  second  in 
its  passion.  It  points  to  union  with  a  Deity  who  is 
fundamentally  the  spirit  of  beauty,  charm,  delight, 
of  shining  skies  and  of  flowers;  who  is  above  all 
that  great  reproductive  principle,  in  whose  action 
man's  life  has  at  once  its  consummation  and  its 
origin,  and  which  in  the  love  of  the  sexes  partly 
unveils  its  mystery. 

The  main  ideas  which  these  attitudes  severally 
represent  are  as  follows:  the  first  attitude  rep- 
resents faith,  the  sense  of  sin,  self  -  chastisement ; 
the  second  represents  gnosis,  power,  self-discipline ; 
the  third  represents  beauty,  love,  self  -  fulfilment. 
The  first  is,  as  need  hardly  be  said,  the  Christian. 
The  second  and  third  have  been  exemplified,  either 
together  or  separately,  in  various  movements  and 
tendencies,  and  in  the  men  who  have  led  and 
represented  them.  So  far  as  individuals  are  con- 
cerned, both  were  represented  by  Goethe;  and 

298 


RELIGION    AND    RELIGIONS 

Goethe  may  be  taken  as  a  symbol,  though  doubt- 
less a  very  incomplete  one,  of  the  kind  of  religion 
with  which,  in  some  form  or  other,  the  Christian 
conception  of  religion  will  have  hereafter  to  con- 
tend. Indeed,  both  of  the  conceptions  which  Goe- 
the united  in  himself  Christianity  has  encountered 
already  as  animating  two  hostile  movements,  one 
of  these  being  the  Humanistic  movement  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  other  the  Scientific  movement  of 
the  past  hundred  years.  Now  both  these,  let  the 
Churches  view  them  as  they  may,  have  taught  tradi- 
tional Christianity  one  lesson  at  all  events — namely, 
that  it  was  too  narrow  to  contain,  recognize,  and 
provide  for  many  of  the  important  elements  of 
civilized  human  nature.  Men  having  for  centuries 
consented  to  look  on  the  flesh  as  vile,  woke  as 
though  from  a  dream  to  see  that  the  limbs  of 
Apollo  had  a  glory  of  their  own  which  was  prefer- 
able to  the  grotesque  emaciations  of  the  anchorite, 
and  Venus  in  marble  and  on  canvas  rose  a  second 
time  from  the  sea.  Men  having  been  content  for 
centuries  to  accept  the  explanation  of  the  universe 
which  ignorant  authority  had  deduced  from  the 
legends  of  an  Oriental  tribe,  began  at  last  to  seek 
for  the  truth  of  things  by  interrogating  the  uni- 
verse itself;  and  the  traditional  cosmogony  of 
the  Churches  collapsed  like  a  house  of  cards.  The 
Churches  by  slow  degrees  have  partially  under- 
stood the  situation,  and  have  sought  to  regain  their 
ascendency  by  making  terms  with  the  enemy;  nor 
can  it  be  said  that  their  efforts  have  been  wholly 

299 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

without  success.  There  is  much  in  modern  culture 
and  there  is  much  in  modern  science  which  by  this 
time  they  have  formally  accepted  and  have  actually 
been  able  to  assimilate.  The  acceptance  and  the 
assimilation,  however,  are  as  yet  partial  only;  and 
it  remains  to  be  seen  how  far  they  can  be  carried, 
without  a  surrender  by  Christians  of  all  that  is 
peculiar  to  their  creed.  Of  main  difficulties  which 
Christianity  will  encounter  in  its  efforts  at  self- 
expansion  are  these:  one  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  question  of  how  far  it  will  be  possible  for  the 
educated  modern  mind  to  identify  the  Galilean 
carpenter,  however  noble  his  nature,  with  the  uni- 
versal cosmic  Mind  which  has  dwelt  in  all  the  neb- 
ulas as  they  globed  themselves  into  all  the  worlds, 
has  animated  the  evolutionary  feud  through  which 
the  strong  have  survived  the  weak,  and  was  the 
author  of  the  very  conditions  under  which  he  was 
put  to  death;  the  other  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  question  of  how  far  it  will  be  possible 
for  men,  knowing  what  they  now  know  of  their 
origin,  to  look  on  themselves  as  a  race  degraded 
by  some  primeval  fault  of  its  own,  and  only 
able  to  escape  by  being  sprinkled  with  a  chem- 
ical compound,  from  the  misfortune  of  deserv- 
ing death  for  the  involuntary  crime  of  being 
alive. 

If  the  contest  were  to  lie  between  Christianity 
and  no  religion  at  all,  or  savage  or  sensual  religions 
which  were  far  worse  than  none,  Christianity  would 
in  spite  of  its  intellectual  difficulties,  need  but  little 

300 


RELIGION    AND    RELIGIONS 

modification  in  order  to  insure  its  survival.  But 
the  case,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  very  reverse  of  this. 
The  Christian  writer  referred  to  at  the  beginning  of 
the  present  chapter  showed  true  insight  when  he 
said  that  the  most  formidable  danger  to  Christian- 
ity will  come  not  from  the  assaults  of  irreligion,  but 
from  a  new  religious  eclecticism,  which  instead  of 
seeking  to  destroy  all  the  pearls  of  the  Christian 
faith,  will  appropriate  some  of  the  choicest  of  them 
and  place  them  in  an  alien  setting.  And  such,  no 
doubt,  will  be  the  course  which  the  eclecticism  of 
the  future  will  take.  It  will  appropriate  from 
Christianity  its  humanitarian  virtues,  something  of 
its  spiritual  exaltation,  much  of  its  spiritual  refine- 
ment ;  but  looking  at  the  origin  of  man  in  the  light 
of  secular  science,  it  will,  while  recognizing  the 
existence  and  the  riddle  of  evil,  accept  it  as  some- 
thing which  is  to  be  outgrown  rather  than  atoned 
for,  and  which  God  deplores  on  man's  account 
rather  than  resents  on .  His  own ;  and  will  conse- 
quently make  of  religion  a  movement  towards 
strength,  beauty,  and  happiness,  rather  than  a 
humble  submission  to  the  discipline  of  deserved 
pain. 

Which  type  of  religion  is  likely  to  prevail  ulti- 
mately, it  is  entirely  beyond  the  province  of  the 
present  volume  to  discuss.  I  have  sought  here 
only  to  indicate  the  salient  points  of  difference 
which  will  inevitably  distinguish  one  type  from  the 
other.  But  whichever  may  prevail,  one  thing  may 
be  said  with  confidence — that  it  will  prevail,  no 

301 


RECONSTRUCTION    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

matter  whether  it  be  Christian  or  non-Christian, 
owing  to  the  same  causes  in  virtue  of  which 
Christianity  has  prevailed  hitherto.  Christianity 
has  prevailed  for  so  many  centuries  and  among  so 
many  nations,  because,  while  its  cosmogony,  its 
anthropology,  and  its  doctrinal  system  in  general, 
has  satisfied  the  human  intellect  during  past  con- 
ditions of  knowledge,  its  moral  and  spiritual  teach- 
ing has  satisfied  even  more  completely  the  moral 
and  spiritual  needs  of  all  men,  from  kings  to  beg- 
gars. If  it  is  to  retain  its  ascendency,  it  must 
continue  to  fulfil  the  same  functions;  but  in  order 
to  do  this  it  must  enlarge  both  its  intellectual  and 
its  moral  borders,  purging  its  doctrines,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  the  now  intolerable  imagery  derived  from 
the  old  geocentric  vision  of  things;  and  taking  to 
its  heart,  on  the  other  hand,  ideals  of  knowledge, 
culture,  mundane  progress,  and  enjoyment,  which 
hitherto  it  has  but  barely  tolerated,  when  it  has  not 
positively  denounced  them.  If  Christianity  fails  to 
effect  this  self-enlargement — or  in  other  words,  in 
proportion  to  the  strength  of  those  civilizing  im- 
pulses which  it  leaves  unsanctioned  and  unpro- 
vided for — its  ascendency  will  inevitably  decline; 
and  the  new  wine  must  be  trusted  to  find  for  itself 
new  bottles. 

It  is  enough  to  say,  in  conclusion,  that  the  ar- 
guments of  the  present  volume,  which  aim  solely 
at  establishing  the  validity  of  religious  belief  in 
general,  ought,  so  far  as  they  meet  with  serious  ac- 
ceptance, to  give  a  confidence  both  to  those  who 

302 


RELIGION    AND    RELIGIONS 

defend  Christianity,  and  who  would  supplant  it, 
which  is  proportionate  to  the  sincerity  of  the  tradi- 
tional faith  of  the  one  party,  and  of  the  religious 
anticipations,  whether  well  or  ill  founded,  of  the 
other. 


THE     END 


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